


Get Busy Exorcising or Get Busy Dying

by orphan_account



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-04-12 00:26:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4458308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patrick meets a really cute boy in a coffee shop.  The catch?  He won't shut up about ghosts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 001

Patrick knows there’s something wrong the moment he steps foot into his new apartment.

But Patrick also knows that there’s going to be something a lot worse if he doesn’t find a place to live. A place to live that he can actually afford, that is.

Patrick Stump is your average starving artist—if you count that fact that he’s a lot better at starving than he is being an artist. He’s been surviving off of ramen noodles and shitty generic coffee since he’d graduated high school two years ago and his parents kicked him out. They were bitter over him deciding not to go to college and get a degree he didn’t need, want, and probably couldn’t even use, so they dumped him out on the street. “For his own good,” they’d said. 

Patrick still doesn’t understand why his parents didn’t _appreciate_ the fact that he saved them tens of thousands of dollars in tuition. He certainly would have if he’d been in their position. If _his_ kid couldn’t picture himself doing anything but making music, and the thought of being trapped in a nine to five job for the rest of his life made him so depressed he couldn’t even find the strength to get out of bed, _he_ would understand. But, you know, parents.

It’s not like he’s a bum or anything. He has a part-time job at a record shop, he gets his bills paid on time, and he isn’t living in a friend’s basement. Anymore, that is. Up until about a week ago Patrick had been staying with his friend, Joe, who had _offered_ to let Patrick live with him. But, that was also a year and a half ago, and although Patrick’s certain that his music is good, he also figures that it probably gets a bit irritating when you have to hear him strumming a guitar over and over at all hours of the day. 

Patrick had tried to stretch out his welcome as far as he could. Getting his own apartment ment he had to pay rent, paying rent meant he would have to work more so he could actually afford it, and working more meant less time for his music. And, if he’s being honest, he didn’t want to move out and get even more “adult” responsibilities. Sure, he’s twenty years old, but most of the time he feels like he was still a clueless high schooler. He could probably pass for one too.

Eventually he forced himself to go out and find somewhere else to stay. Joe, although he wouldn’t come out and say it, had been hinting at it in practically every conversation they had, mostly in the form of complaining. Patrick sure as hell knows that he won’t miss that. He’s sure he’ll never meet a person who complains more than Joe does.

So, now he’s here, surrounded by half-unpacked boxes, in what he guesses is probably the shittiest apartment on this side of Chicago. He’d been ecstatic at how cheap it had been, but it hadn’t taken long for him to realize he’d gotten exactly what he’d bargained for. The paint on _every_ single wall is peeling, the shower head makes more noise than the furnace (which probably shouldn’t be making that much noise either), and one of the doors is missing a knob. But Patrick is an optimist, and he knows that in a few days time he’ll have the place feeling like home, even with all its imperfections.

There is one more thing Patrick’s noticed about the place, however. It was the first thing he noticed about the apartment, in fact. It isn’t something tangible, like the water stains on the ceiling or the suspiciously head-shaped hole in his bedroom wall, but more of a feeling, an aura. It just makes him feel like there’s something off, a slight discomfort, but it’s not noticeable enough for him to put a name to it. 

He decides it’s just because right now the place looks like more of a storage unit than somewhere he’s supposed to be living. Patrick does his best to ignore it, assuming that all it’s going to take to get rid of it will be his moving his beaten-up couch in and tacking some posters up in his room. Maybe a plant or two.

After hours of unpacking boxes and trying to find a place for everything, Patrick decides to reward himself with a break. He hadn’t thought he’d had this much stuff, but somehow there’s still an unwelcoming stack of things to sort through in the corner. He tries to put it to the back of his mind as he makes his way over to his living room window, peering down onto the street below.

He’s only on the fourth floor, so it’s not that high up, but he still has a pretty nice view. At least, compared to the rest of his apartment. The midday sun is soaking through the dingy window, leaving warmth on Patrick’s exposed skin, despite the cold autumn air seeping in. That isn’t going to be good once winter kicks in, Patrick thinks to himself. Good thing he has a plenty of cardigans.

The first thing that catches his eye is a little coffee shop right across the street. It was practically the first thing his hipster self had noticed when he came here, and he’d be lying if he said that wasn’t a huge selling point for this shit hole. And now that he’s been reminded of it, he knows his mind isn’t going to let him get anything done until he’s gotten a double chocolatey chip frappuccino with whipped cream.

Already being able to practically taste the chocolatey coffee goodness, Patrick grabs his phone and shoves it into his back pocket as he swings his front door open with a loud creak. He takes in details of the hallway this time, now that he doesn’t have cardboard pressed up against his face. It’s not much better than his apartment. To be honest, it actually kind of creeps him out. Besides himself, it’s completely empty, and it’s eerily silent, considering that it’s the middle of the afternoon. Not to mention, the light at the end of the hall is out, which is sketchy enough by itself.

Patrick tries not to think too much about it as he walks to the elevator, possibly walking a bit quicker than normal. The elevator itself isn’t much of a comfort, he’s not even surprised that it screeches when it moves, but at least it’s working. For now, anyways. Patrick muses that he should be grateful when he gets to the first floor without getting mugged or dying in a horrible elevator accident. He’s only half-serious.

He’s greeted by a cool breeze as he steps out onto the pavement. After spending hours in his new home, the scene outside is refreshing: people are bustling about, and the murmur of conversation is oddly comforting. He crosses the street, making sure to look both ways twice, of course, and doesn’t waste anytime entering the shop. A cozy warmth hits him as he pushes the door open, along with the all too familiar aroma of coffee. A bell announces his entrance, but nobody pays him any mind. There really aren’t that many people in the shop, but the small size of it makes it seem crowded.

It only takes Patrick a handful of steps to reach the counter and order his drink. Since it’s so cool out, he feels a bit obligated to order something hot, but a frappuccino is calling out to him, and he knows he’ll regret it if he doesn’t get that goddamn five dollar cup of calories. He deserves to treat himself at least once in awhile. The barista whips up his drink in almost no time, and hands it off to Patrick with a smile. He smiles back and thanks them, turning to find a place to sit. He feels a bit awkward just standing there while he’s looking, but there’s not really anything he can do about it. The place doesn’t have a whole lot of seating, and every table is occupied.

There’s one guy hogging a table just a few feet away from him, and Patrick silently curses him. Couldn’t he just sit with someone else so Patrick could have a table to himself? Patrick knows how ridiculous that sounds. But he’s too awkward to just go and sit down next to him, and he really doesn’t want to go back to his apartment just yet. Patrick’s partially aware that probably isn’t a great mentality to have considering he lives there now, but he can deal with that later. Could he just go and sit down next to him? Is that something that people do in coffee shops? Patrick thinks to himself, no, he’s probably supposed to ask first, right? How does he ask in a way that doesn’t sound creepy?

With a start, Patrick realizes the stranger is looking his way now. The only thing he can think of is that he’s really, _really_ hot. Whoever this guy is, Patrick mentally thanks his parents for creating such a beautiful human being. His eyes are the color of honey, and are the most gorgeous set of brown eyes he’s ever seen. His hair is bleached, but his dark roots are impossible to miss. Somehow, he makes it work, and he works it _really_ well. He’s got kind of bushy eyebrows, which are currently slightly scrunched together. Patrick’s thinking that he looks really cute with that expression when he realizes that the stranger is looking right at him. Probably because Patrick’s been staring at him like a total creep.

A blush spreads like wildfire across Patrick’s face. He further embarrasses himself as he tries to come up with an apology, but it just ends up with him opening and closing his mouth like an idiot with a few noises coming out. Honestly, he shouldn’t be the one apologizing. The stranger should be sorry for being so damn attractive and making him space out.

“Do you wanna sit down?” Patrick’s ears don’t register what the stranger says at first. So, of course, he makes a bigger idiot of himself while he processes the stranger’s words. His heart starts to pound in his chest when he realizes what he’s being asked; he doesn’t trust himself to say anything intelligent so he just nods and gives a shaky smile as he sits down.

Suddenly Patrick is very self conscious. He most likely has dust all over himself from unpacking, and just being in his apartment in general, and he probably should have showered after moving all of his furniture around. He’s also chiding himself for getting such a dumb drink. He feels the blush burning strong on his cheeks as he sees the stranger drinking what looks like black coffee. He reminds himself that it’s highly unlikely he’s being judged for drinking a frappuccino, and even if he was he wouldn’t really want to associate with someone who’s that big of a prick, but his social anxiety will never let him have anything.

And, with another start, he realizes that he’s staring again. But the stranger doesn’t really seem to mind. Well, he kind of looks like he wants to laugh at Patrick (and Patrick can’t blame him), but at least he isn’t running out the door or anything. Patrick manages to take his eyes of the stranger’s face, and looks down to the table. Next to his cup, he sees what has to be the messiest, most disorganized binder he’s ever seen. First of all, it looks like it was older than Patrick, with worn edges and about a pound of duct tape holding it together. It looks like five or six notebooks worth of paper had somehow been fit into it, and then even more pieces had been lazily shoved in between pages. He can only see a couple pages, but on them there’s just a sad excuse of handwriting, a whole lot of it, and some hastily taped on pictures. Honestly, it’s even more of a mess than Patrick is right now.

Suddenly, the idea that Patrick is interrupting the stranger from some kind of work hits him, and he goes into overdrive apology mode.

“Oh, god, sorry! Were you working on something important? If you want me to leave I can just go, it’s not a big deal or anyth-”

“No!” The stranger breaks him off, and for a moment he sounds almost as flustered as Patrick, but he recollects himself before Patrick can even appreciate how adorable he looks with his eyebrows arched up and his eyes wide. “I mean, it’s nothing urgent. I’m Pete.”

Patrick practically melts at his voice. It’s not as deep as his, but it’s tinged with a laugh, matched by the smile pulling at Pete’s lips. Patrick and Pete. Pete and Patrick. He makes a note of how good those two names sound together. And then he mentally facepalms for being so weird; this definitely isn’t how you’re supposed to act with someone you’ve known for literally not even five minutes.

Patrick curses himself yet again as he realizes Pete can’t read his mind, and he should probably answer him soon so at least he won’t seem even more awkward than he already is. 

“I’m Patrick,” he actually manages to get out without a stutter or apology. He swears Pete’s smile grows a little. It looks really nice on him. His teeth are pretty and white and straight, and, oh god, his lips-

“Hey, what kind of frappe is that?” Patrick’s kind of thankful that Pete interrupts his inner monologue before he can finish his thought. He looks down at his untouched frappe for a moment and looks back up at Pete, a sheepish half-smile working its way across his face.

“Uh, it’s double chocolatey chip.” God, Patrick can’t believe he had to say something that stupid sounding in front of someone this hot. Why couldn’t they have just have named it chocolate chip and called it good? Who was the asshole that thought goddamn chocolatey chip would be a good idea? Patrick hoped he got stuck in traffic, or something. He was pissed, but he didn’t deserve anything super bad. But traffic jams were still pretty bad. They were annoying, like chocolatey chip.

Patrick’s waiting for Pete to laugh at him, but instead he just give him a pensive nod. 

“Can I try it?” Pete asks, pointing to the drink in question. Patrick’s kind of shocked that an almost total stranger is asking to share his coffee, but he certainly doesn’t mind. He obliges, sliding the cup over. Normally, he would be a little bitter that he hadn’t even had a sip yet, but Pete is actually _talking_ to him, so he’s not going to complain.

He watches Pete take a sip of his drink and put a hand up to his chin as he looks at the frappuccino with his eyebrows scrunched together. For whatever reason, Patrick finds how intently he’s regarding his drink endearing. God, he really needs to get a grip.

“That’s not bad,” Pete says after a few more seconds of thinking and slides the cup back to Patrick. Patrick knows it’s a hell of a lot better than “not bad”, it’s _double_ chocolatey chip, but he’s not going to start an argument over that. “Lately I’ve been getting so sick of coffee,” Pete continues, “but I literally could not function without it. I’ve been trying to get over my pride and get a frappuccino.” He ends with another laugh that makes Patrick’s heart burst, even though he’s pretty sure he just got indirectly insulted. Pete doesn’t seem to notice. With the smallest bit of shame, he finally takes a sip of his drink. The elementary schooler in him is saying that technically, Pete and Patrick just kissed. He cringes inwardly before washing the thought down with another sip.

“So, you’re new here, right?” Pete asks him, and Patrick wonders if he really looks that out of place. Maybe Pete is a mind reader, but Patrick’s pretty sure he’s not, or he probably would have dumped his coffee over Patrick a long time ago.

“Yeah, I just moved here. Right across the street,” he answers, trying to make his voice sound not as awkward as it usually does when he talks to strangers. He points a thumb out the window and across the street over to the apartment building. God, it even looked like a mess from the outside. Pete’s gaze follows Patrick’s finger before his head snaps back to Patrick.

“You live there?!” Pete says it like it’s the most exciting thing he’s heard this week, his eyes lighting up.

“Uh, yeah,” Patrick answers with much less enthusiasm, trying to figure out the meaning behind Pete’s reaction. “That’s not really a thing to get excited about, though.”

“No, no, no, it’s great, it’s fantastic!” Pete bursts out, rifling through his monstrosity of a binder. Patrick raises an eyebrow as he watches Pete tear through the binder, looking for the connection between it and his apartment. He doesn’t have a great feeling about it.

“Uh, I’m pretty sure that not having door knobs or seriously not knowing if you’re going to make it out the elevator alive isn’t that fantastic,” he says, hoping it doesn’t come off as too mean, “but, okay.”

“No, no, I’m talking ab-wait, for real?” Pete interrupts himself, looking up from his binder to give Patrick a look of disbelief. “That place doesn’t have door knobs?”

“Okay, that was kind of a lie,” Patrick shrugs, breaking away from Pete’s eye contact. “It mostly has doorknobs, but still not as many as it should. The elevator part is true.” 

“That sucks.” Patrick can tell that Pete is trying for empathy, but it really just comes out as a laugh at how ridiculous his situation is. Patrick joins in; Pete’s laugh is starting to get infectious. Also, maybe he can cope with his shitty living arrangements if he just makes it into one big joke. That doesn’t sound like the healthiest thing to do, but, he doesn’t have much to lose.

“But, no,” Pete begins, breaking off his laughter and switching to a serious tone in less than a second. It’s kind of weird, Patrick think as he intently waits for Pete to continue. “I’ve been studying that place a lot lately. Reading up on all the stories, trying to gather up any evidence I can. I’ve been all over the damn place trying to find someone to get me in to investigate. And you, Patrick, are my golden ticket.”

Patrick is one hundred percent sure his heart stops beating when his name rolls off Pete’s lips. And the way he’s looking at him—it’s the most beautiful smile he thinks he’s ever seen. Only one thing’s wrong; he has absolutely no idea what Pete is talking about.

“Thank you, I think?” Patrick responds, his eyebrows scrunching together. “But, um… what?” Maybe Pete’s some sort of undercover detective, and he’s investigating a murder that happened in his apartment building. Patrick sure hopes not, because that would only make that one hole in his wall a whole lot more suspicious. He also doesn’t want to deal with some angry murdered spirit going after him, not that he’s a firm believer in the paranormal. 

“Wait,” Pete says, bringing his hand up to his chin. He pauses for a moment, that adorable confused pout back on his face. “Are you telling me you don’t know?” Patrick has to hold back an eyeroll. He wonders if people know how dumb they sound when they say things like that. Obviously he doesn’t know what Pete was talking about, and even if he actually does know, that sure isn’t going to help him realize it. 

“Uh, no? Not a clue.” He tries to hold back the sarcasm a little, but it still comes out pretty strong. Oops.

“Well, uh,” Pete mumbles, looking like he’s trying to string together what to say in his head. “Do you believe in ghosts?” Patrick’s eyes go a little wide at the randomness of question.

“Er,” Patrick starts, looking anywhere but Pete’s face. “I’m not really sure.” He pauses to gauge Pete’s expression, then continues. “I’m not like, a solid non-believer or anything, but I’ve never really had any experiences to prove anything.” Pete mumbles something under his breath with the smallest hint of a smirk, but Patrick can’t quite hear what he said. 

“What was that?” Patrick asks, and Pete quickly shakes his head.

“It’s nothing. Just, well—I’m gonna say this bluntly.” Pete looks like he’s waiting for some sort of signal from Patrick to continue. Patrick just gives a small nod, raising a brow. He’s starting to wonder if Pete’s good looks and pretty eyes and nice smile and cute laugh are worth it. Okay, yeah, they definitely are, but this is still weird.

Pete looks around to see if anyone’s listening, and then leans in toward Patrick and opens his mouth.

“Your apartment is haunted.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! leaving a comment would be rly cool :D


	2. 002

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pete thinks ghosts are really neat.

“...Okay?” 

Pete’s face looks like he’s waiting for Patrick to flip out or something, like he just dropped the most horrifying news Patrick’s ever going to hear in his life. Patrick wonders if he really comes off as that big of a pansy. Okay, yeah, he probably does.

Honestly, it’s not like his “big revelation” has a lot of weight in Patrick’s opinion. People say things are haunted all the time. Supposedly, Patrick’s high school was haunted, and in the four grueling years he spent there, the closest thing he had to a a paranormal experience was a poster falling off the wall. And that was most likely just due to shitty tape. It wasn’t that great of a school.

When he only responds with an unimpressed shrug, the look of disappointment on Pete’s face is almost palpable. Patrick would normally be annoyed, but he’s already come to terms with the fact that he can’t be mad at a face that pretty. So instead he just does the best he can to try to muster up a glare. It isn’t that convincing.

“You’re not scared?” Pete questioned, sitting back in his chair. “Or excited? Usually people are one of the two.”

“Is it really that big of deal?” Patrick questions, shrugging his shoulders. “I mean, it’s an apartment—of course people are going to say it’s haunted.”

“People are saying it’s haunted because it _is_ haunted.” Patrick has to fight the urge to laugh at the defensive scowl crossing his face.

“Do you have any proof?” 

“Yes! W-well… I mean, no,” Pete stammers out, and Patrick is thankful that he’s not the only flustered one anymore. “Not yet. But that’s why I need you.”

Those last three words send Patrick’s heart into a frenzy of fluttering, and he’s pretty sure that if this keeps up any longer he’s going to need medical attention. Pete needs him! It takes him a couple seconds to get over that fact and realize that he still doesn’t really get why Pete needs him. He almost doesn’t care, but a voice in the back of his head is telling him that he should probably be suspicious of an almost total stranger telling him that he needs him.

“Uh... so what do you need me for, again, exactly?” Pete gives him a grin and takes a sip of his coffee before answering.

“I’m part of the Paranormal Club at my university,” he begins, absentmindedly twirling his pen. “We try to document ghosts and things like that. You know, like getting recordings and pictures and videos and stuff. Oh, except we have a guy who’s completely _obsessed_ with aliens. It’s kind of weird. Well, I mean weirder than being obsessed with dead people. Actually, when you put it like that, I don’t think it is weirder. 

“Anyways, he makes us go UFO hunting every once in awhile. I’m pretty sure we’ve never found anything, but he probably wouldn’t give up even if, like, NASA said aliens didn’t exist.”

By this point Patrick’s barely listening to what Pete’s rambling about, and instead unconsciously chooses to admire how nice his lips look, and how much he just wants to lean across the table and kiss them. He only realizes that he’s just been staring like a creep when Pete pauses to take another drink of his coffee. What was the last thing he said? He just nods and hopes it was something that nodding would make sense to.

Pete doesn’t seem to notice anything’s off, and continues talking as soon as he sets his cup down.

“So, anyways, I’ve been trying to get us to be able to do an investigation in your apartment building forever. Like, _weeks_. I’ve heard stories about the place since I was a freshman, but all of them were so crazy I thought they had to be rumors. But I’m starting to get curious now. 

“None of us have been able to get in to do an investigation, and we can’t exactly just set up all our stuff in the hallway. One time we tried going door to door asking people, but everyone just looked at us like we were crazy, and then one of them said he was going to call the police, so we left. God, he was an asshole. But, Patrick, that’s where you come in.” 

Pete’s smile widens as Patrick’s name rolls off his lips. Is Pete, someone he’s known for less than an hour, seriously asking him if he can come look for ghosts in Patrick’s home? Apparently. And is Patrick seriously going to let him? Of course.

“O-okay, yeah, that’s fine,” Patrick nods, cursing his stutter. But he’s pretty sure anyone would be stutter if someone this attractive was asking to come over to their house.

“Awesome!” The look of pure joy Pete is giving Patrick is worth whatever the odds are that he just invited a serial killer over. “Does tomorrow work?”

“Yeah, that’s great!” Patrick inwardly cringes at how enthusiastic that sounds. Can he not be embarrassing for once in his life? “I mean, that’s fine.”

“Sweet!” Pete picks up a pen and starts rifling through his binder. “Um…gimme a sec…” He flips through a few more pages before pulling out a blank scrap of paper. He slides it over to Patrick, along with the pen. “Can you write your apartment number down for me?”

Patrick doesn’t even give it a second thought before he obliges, scrawling the three digit number down and handing it back to Pete. He just shoves it back into the depths of the binder, and Patrick really hopes he doesn’t lose it. Honestly, what even _is_ that binder. He doesn’t even think his entire locker was ever that messy during school.

“What’s in that, exactly?” Patrick asks, pointing to the object in question. Pete smiles wider than he has the entire time they’ve been talking, and Patrick’s mind is buzzing so much that he almost misses it when Pete scoots his chair around the table and right next to Patrick’s. He slides the binder around with him, completely forgetting about his coffee.

“It’s all the evidence I’ve collected. Besides videos and audio recordings, obviously. Every little detail of all the places I’ve investigated is written down in here.”

“That’s a lot.” Patrick curses himself for not coming up with anything better than that. No shit, it’s a lot. Thankfully, Pete doesn’t seem to think he sounds as dumb as he does to himself.

“I know!” he responds with laugh, flipping through the pages as though he’s looking for something certain. Patrick doesn’t think he’ll ever find it. “I’m trying to get enough good stuff to write a book.” Patrick hopes Pete doesn’t see his eyes practically bulge out of his head, because he imagines that looks pretty unattractive.

“That’s not enough?!”

“I guess it might be. I just feel like it needs something more. Something huge.” He looks like he’s going to say more, but he interrupts himself when he finds what he was looking for. “Oh! Here, look at this!” Pete stretches out his arm to point at a picture on the further side of the binder, and Patrick’s sure that his face combusts when Pete’s shoulder rubs against his. 

“I took this in a hotel in D.C.” Somewhere in the back of Patrick’s mind, he knows that he should be turning his attention to whatever is being pointed out to him, but he’s still trying to process that Pete is _clearly_ leaning on him now. Does he even realize? Is this supposed to be some kind of sign that it’s alright for Patrick to start making out with him? Okay, it’s probably not that, but he can dream.

He doesn’t know how Pete expects him to focus on anything when all he can think about is how nice it would be if Pete would just wrap an arm around him, or if Patrick could rest his head against Pete’s shoulder. Patrick’s voice of reason snaps him back to the real world. He doesn’t even know Pete’s last name; he _really_ should not be having these thoughts about him. And even if he’d known Pete longer, he doesn’t think there’s really any possibility someone as attractive as Pete would like him back.

His eyes dimming a bit, he brings himself to look down at the picture Pete is pointing at. His mouths opens a little when he sees it. It’s of a hotel room, with bags and clothes strewn across the floor. There’s a woman in it, right in the middle. She’s facing away from the camera, the long dress she’s wearing flowing behind her. Except, one thing’s wrong. The woman is translucent.

“That’s a ghost?!” Patrick bursts out after trying to comprehend just how the hell that picture has a see-through woman in it.

“Yup,” Pete nods, giving Patrick a toothy grin. “I was there on a school trip my senior year of high school. You wouldn’t believe how much I freaked out when I took it. I probably showed it to everyone I met at least five times.”

“That’s so creepy…” Even the warmth from Pete’s shoulder can’t keep a chill from crawling up Patrick’s spine. He’s definitely never been a fan of ghost stories, especially true ones. One time Joe forced him to watch Paranormal Activity, and, to sum his experience up, he slept with the lights on for a week straight. He would have done it even longer, but Joe had started yelling at him about how outrageous the power bill was going to be. And he decided he was more afraid of an angry Joe than he was a creepy baby-stealing demon.

“But wait…” Patrick notices something off about the picture the more he stares at it. Well, more off than the fact that it’s a picture of a ghost. From where the woman appears to be standing, she looks like she’s at least seven feet tall. Maybe people were taller in the past, but Patrick’s pretty darn sure they weren’t giants. “Why does it look like she’s taller than the door?”

Pete lets out a sigh and pulls his hand back to cross his arms over his chest. Patrick tries not to let it show that he even noticed Pete’s shoulder isn’t pressed up against his anymore. “I’m not sure,” Pete starts, and Patrick takes this as another opportunity to admire his face. “Usually when that happens, it means that the ghost was standing on something that existed during their lifetime but isn’t present anymore, like, stairs or something.

“But I haven’t been able to think of anything that she would have been standing on, unless the floor plan was different back then. But that’s another part of the problem. I have no idea who she is. If I lived close by maybe I could figure out the history of the place, but we were only there for a couple days. It sucks that I got a piece of evidence as great as this one and I don’t even know why I got it, but I mean, that’s life.”

“Yeah, that sucks.” Patrick can’t empathize with him at all—he can’t say he’s ever been in a similar situation—but the absolutely adorable pout on Pete’s face is all the motivation he needs to try and sympathize a little. “But, hey, I mean, maybe you’ll get to go back someday?”

“Oh, man, that sounds like the best vacation ever.” Patrick doesn’t really think traveling halfway across the country just to research what’s probably an old, one-star hotel sounds like a good vacation, or even a vacation at all, but he finds himself nodding along with Pete. It’s probably because the smile he’s giving Patrick right now most likely would have made his knees go weak if he would have been standing. God, he’s pretty sure that smile could cure cancer. You know, if somehow scientists figure out a way for physical beauty to fight mutated cells.

“Here, if you want,” Pete starts again, flipping through his binder, “I can show you some more pictures-” He’s interrupted by a ringtone sounding off from his phone, sitting next to his forgotten coffee across the table. He reaches over and silences it in the blink of an eye, but not before Patrick realizes that it’s a 8-bit version of something he’s definitely heard before. He plays it over in his head a few times, trying to recall from what exactly it was from. A TV show? A movie? Oh. Oh god. He knows what it is.

“Was that the Ghostbusters’ theme song?”

Pete’s head snaps up from his phone, embarrassment plain as day on his face, and he’s actually _blushing_. Patrick has to bite his lip to stop himself from just reaching over, grabbing Pete’s face, and kissing the hell out of him.

“Uh, um, yeah, it is. I know that’s so lame. But, like, it’s kind of funny, right? Okay, yeah, no. It’s just dumb.” 

“It’s not! I love Ghostbusters! My friends won’t let me watch it with them anymore because I’ll start saying all the lines.” Patrick’s laughing, bringing his hand up to over his mouth. He can’t believe that Pete actually think that he, Patrick Stump, is going to find him lame. He, the same guy who wouldn’t know what cool was if it was shoving him in a locker (which happened a few more times than he would like to admit). 

“Seriously?” Pete snorts, melting Patrick’s fragile heart. “We should watch it together sometime.”

Patrick does a double take when those words leave Pete’s mouth. Did he just ask him out on a date? No, he can’t jump to conclusions like that. He probably just really likes Ghostbusters. Patrick can’t blame him; it’s one of the best movies of all time. But Patrick can’t take his mind off the idea of him and Pete snuggled under a blanket, Pete’s shoulder wrapped around him while his free hand is intwined with Patrick’s, and Patrick feels his chest rise and fall everytime he laughs, and-

Okay, he really needs to get a grip.

“Y-yeah, that would be awesome,” he somehow manages to sputter out, sensing pink start to dust his cheeks again.

“Sweet!” Pete’s grinning at Patrick for a moment longer before he looks down at his phone and lets out a groan. “I just got a text from my roommate. I, uh, kind of forgot we were supposed to start studying for our midterm like twenty minutes ago. So, I gotta run. But, I’ll see you tomorrow, right?” Patrick nods, and he’s positive that the look of crushing disappointment on his face must be noticeable. He doesn’t want Pete to leave. He wants Pete to stay and talk to him about his ghost stories and his weird club and whatever the hell he wants to talk about, because Patrick doesn’t think he could ever get tired of listening to his voice.

“Thanks so much for letting me do this,” he says, patting Patrick on the back a few times. Honestly, at this point, it might actually be better for Patrick’s health for him to be able to go home and calm down from the excessive amount of heart palpitations Pete’s given him today. He smiles at Patrick one last time before shutting his binder and scooting his chair back over to the opposite side of the table.

“See you later,” he grins one last time, and is out the door and gone way too soon for Patrick’s liking.

After that, he’s left alone at the table with nothing but himself and a melting frappuccino. He would be mad at himself for wasting a perfectly good drink if the reason had been any other than that he was too busy talking to a really, really hot guy to remember that’d he’d only come here for his dumb frappe.

With a sigh, Patrick remembers the load of work waiting for him at home. Normally, he would give into his laziness and save the rest of the boxes for another day, but he at least wants his apartment to look somewhat decent when Pete comes over. He doesn’t really think Pete’s the type of person to care that his apartment looks like a mess, but can’t take any chances.

So, with that particular source of motivation stuck in his mind, he trudges back to his apartment and forces himself to start picking through the mess of boxes and junk. It looks even bigger than he remembers it. It’s going to be a long night.  
* * *

Patrick wipes a bead of sweat off forehead as he _finally_ manages to heave his TV onto the stand. With that, everything is officially unpacked. His living room actually doesn’t look that bad, with a couch in the middle of the room and a coffee table in front of it, a brown and white rug spread across the wooden floor, and his record player sitting a table set against the left wall. It’s not a lot, but it’s all he needs to make it feel like home.

He looks over at the clock he’d hung up a little while ago. It tells him that it’s already nine o’clock. He sighs. That definitely took him a lot longer than expected. He’s exhausted, and he really just wants to crawl into bed and pass out, but he should really take a shower first. He sure as heck doesn’t want to be disgusting for when he sees Pete tomorrow. 

And in addition to showering, he hasn’t gotten to play music at _all_ today. He feels like he’s going into withdrawal; his fingers are just itching to run across his keyboard or strum his guitar. He pushes away whatever tiredness he has and makes his way over to his music room. He still needs to get some posters or something to hang up to make it a little less bland, but his instruments don’t do that bad of a job of filling it up.

He has his keyboard against the center of the right wall, and a couple crates of records right next to it. His guitars are in the left corner—he has an acoustic one and an electric one. Against the left wall he has a small desk, already piled high with sheet music. There’s blank papers and pens scattered across it (he doesn’t know how it’s already this messy) and his laptop is plopped on top of it all.

His head shoots up to the ceiling as he hears footsteps creaking on the floor above him. He lets out a laugh—did that really just scare him? He isn’t surprised that his apartment isn’t in the least bit soundproof, but he hopes that it won’t get too irritating. Actually, with how much he’s going to be playing music, he hopes he won’t be doing too much irritating.

He thinks for a few moments before sliding over to his keyboard, deciding that it’s the instrument that takes the least amount of energy. He flips the power switch up, and his fingers instantly hit the keys, playing off random melodies and songs. That is, until he notices something off. He plays through a set of keys, slowly. He hits one key, and the note rings out, and the next, and the next, but the final key is silent. He hits it again. Nothing.

Letting out a frustrated groan, he switches the keyboard on and off and plays it again. It still doesn’t make a noise. He unplugs it and plugs it back in, and nothing changes. Patrick lets a breath of hot air out of his nose. It’s okay. It’s probably something that’s easily fixable. Hopefully. He’ll deal with it in the morning. 

As Patrick’s getting up to go to take a shower and go to bed, he catches the sound of someone laughing from upstairs. It’s not that loud, the floor does some work to muffle it, but it still loud enough for him to be hearing it. Yeah, as optimistic as he is, he knows that’s going to get annoying fast.

He takes what has to be the laziest shower he’s ever taken, dries his hair with a towel, and puts on some random pajamas. He’s tired enough to pass out as soon as his head hits the pillow, but somehow his mind is still wide awake. He can’t get over the fact that in less than twenty-four hours, he’s going to get to see Pete again. 

As much as he wants to fall asleep and have it be tomorrow already, he can’t stop thinking about Pete. His mind is running the image of him smiling over and over again, and the sound of his voice is stuck in Patrick’s head. A small voice keeps telling him that he needs to come back down to earth and get over his dumb infatuation, but he’s already in too deep. 

After his thoughts finally calm down, he manages to slip into unconsciousness, and his mind starts to store the events of the day. The night passes with Patrick smiling into his pillow, his dreams tinted by a coffee shop and a certain ghost-loving boy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> funfact: patricks part about his high school is based off mine  
> also: the part about patrick knowing ghostbusters word for word is true (he says it in a magazine interview lol)  
> and also the picture pete shows patrick is actually a real picture! my friends went on a school trip to d.c. this year and someone from another group snapped it. [here it is if anyone wants to see it](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CK9-mqzUMAA8QUj.jpg)  
> thanks for reading!!!  
> comment maybe? :)


	3. 003

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They look for some ghosts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all 66 episodes of ghost adventures i've seen have prepared me for this fic (aaron is my fav)

Patrick wakes up before his alarm goes off. Two hours before his alarm is set to go off, that is. He tosses and turns for a good forty-five minutes before giving up and accepting the fact that there’s no way he’s getting back to sleep. He throws his blankets off with a groan and shuffles around his room, trying to get to the door without running into anything.

He manages to get to the kitchen without incident and starts up the coffee maker, fingers tapping across the countertop in anticipation of the caffeinated bean water. He idly looks over to the clock on his oven. It reads a few minutes past 10:30. He lets out a sigh, the realization hitting him that Pete never told him what time he’s going to come over. Pete, from what he could tell, isn’t the most organized person in the world, and Patrick had been too swept up in his dumb emotions to even think about it. So, now he’s going to be on pins and needles all day waiting for his doorbell to ring.

Listening to the pattering of hot liquid spilling out of the machine doesn’t help to speed time up. He can barely take waiting five minutes for the coffee pot to fill up; he doesn’t know how he’s going to handle however long it’s going to be until Pete shows up. He let’s himself be distracted by the window for a few moments; it’s overcast outside, and the sky is just starting to sprinkle. It looks like it’s going to be rainy all day.

After what seems like forever, he finally has enough coffee to fill up a cup. He doesn’t waste anytime getting to his music room and setting his coffee on the desk before he goes and sits down at his keyboard. He switches it on as he stifles a yawn, hoping that his problem from last night solved itself. He let’s his finger hover over the key in question for a few seconds, letting the suspense build.

He bites his lip and presses down.

Nothing.

Patrick sighs; he didn’t think anything was going to be different, but he had hoped. At least his _entire_ keyboard isn’t broken. He’ll just have to deal with it until he can get it fixed. 

It seems that isn’t his only problem, however.

He can’t get anything right. He can’t remember the rhythm of a single song, not even ones he’s been able to play in his sleep since he was ten. As his frustration builds up, the weird aura he felt earlier becomes more and more noticeable. It’s not helping anything. It’s almost like a constant ringing in his ear, but, as hard as he tries, he can’t tune it out.

The doorbell saves his keyboard from being thrown out the window. Patrick’s tension immediately melts away, and he perks up. Pete’s here, and that’s really all that matters to him. Patrick scrambles out of his music room and makes a straight dash to the front door. He hopes Pete couldn’t hear him practically running.

He’s grinning wide as he unlocks the deadbolt and swings the door open. Patrick’s greeted with the sight of Pete holding his monster binder, along with two other people he’s never seen before. 

The one on the left has nothing but a cup of what Patrick presumes is coffee, his other hand shoved into his jacket pocket. His dark hair is a mess (in Patrick’s opinion, it looks like it hasn’t been washed for a couple days), and he looks like he just woke up, with bags under his eyes and a drowsy, uninterested look on his face.

Patrick’s pretty sure that the other guy is carrying all of their equipment by himself. There’s two duffel bags strapped around him, and he has another bag in his hands, but he doesn’t seem to mind. His red hair isn’t as messy as the first guy’s, but it could still use a brush. He looks a lot more happy to be there, but Patrick has a feeling that his face just naturally looks happy.

“What’s up, ‘Trick?” Pete’s voice draws Patrick’s attention back to him. He raises a brow at the nickname.

“What did you just call me?”

“‘Trick?” Pete grins, inviting himself into the apartment, followed by his friends. “Get it? It’s like Patrick, but shorter. It’s funny. I’m funny.” Patrick lets out a laugh, and he inwardly argues with himself whether he was laughing because it was actually funny or because it was Pete. He’s pretty sure he knows the answer, but he has too much self respect to admit it, even if it’s just to himself.

“He’s not funny,” the one with the coffee says as he walks in the doorway, directing the statement at Patrick. “You don’t have to pretend like he is.”

“I thought it was pretty funny,” the other guy adds in, setting all of his bags down on Patrick’s floor. 

“At least someone appreciates me,” Pete sighs dramatically, dumping his binder onto the coffee table. “Oh! Patrick, by the way, this,” he says, pointing to the dark haired guy, “is Gerard. He’s a psychic. Don’t be surprised if he says something weird.” Patrick decides not to question the “psychic” part and gives him a nod before turning to the other guy. “And that’s Josh. He’s in charge of all of our equipment. He’s the one I told you about. The one that’s in love with aliens.”

“They’re really neat,” Josh grins, giving Patrick a little wave.

“So,” Pete starts up again, making himself at home by plopping down on the couch and opening his binder to a fresh page. He pulls a pen out of his back pocket. “Are you cool with us setting up some video cameras and stuff? Just incase something happens, we don’t wanna miss it.” Patrick goes and sits on the couch, leaving about a foot of space between him and Pete. He wants to sit closer, but he doesn’t want to be _that_ obvious. 

“Uh, yeah, that’s fine.” It’s kind of a weird request, but obviously Patrick’s not going to say no. Pete gives him a smile, one that sends a flutter through Patrick’s chest, and gives Josh a nod. Josh starts pulling cameras and tripods out of one of the bags. A lot of cameras.

“Do you guys seriously get enough funding to buy all this stuff?” Patrick blurts out, hoping it’s not a rude question to ask. None of them seem to mind.

“Yeah!” Pete pipes up, twirling his pen around in his hand. “We actually get a lot of donations. It’s kind of weird.

“We sure as hell get more funding than the drama department,” Gerard chimes in with a flat tone, sitting himself down next to Pete. “Did you see their last play?”

“Hey, that wasn’t all their fault,” Josh says, screwing a camera onto a tripod. “It was badly written in the first place.”

“Josh,” Gerard deadpans, “Instead of getting a fake baby they just took a stuffed cat and wrapped it in a blanket.”

“It fooled me.” Gerard’s about to open his mouth, but Pete cuts him off.

“Cool story. Can we maybe do what we came here for now?” Gerard grumbles something incomprehensible into his coffee, and Josh leaves with a snort to go place the tripods. Pete lets out a sigh as he turns to Patrick. “It sucks, but _sometimes_ I have to be the mature one.”

Patrick laughs with him, and he’s glad that Pete’s including him in the conversation. He’s too nervous to think of anything meaningful to say to Pete, and he just doesn’t know the other two well enough to know what to say to them. Well, not that he knows Pete that well either, but that’s different. He’s never felt more out of place in his own home.

“So, uh, what exactly do you guys do during an investigation?” Patrick asks, hoping that the answer isn’t something obvious. He doesn’t want to make himself look stupid in front of Pete. Well, more stupid. Pete takes a breath before he answers.

“Well, first, we start off by placing our cameras around the location as soon as possible. While Josh is doing that, Gerard tells me if he senses anything, since he’s our resident ghost-talker.” Gerard winks at the two of them as he takes a sip of coffee. “I write down whatever he says in here.” He points to the binder with the tip of his pen. “Next, we do an EVP session. That stands for ‘electronic voice phenomena’. It’s when we take a voice recorder, ask some questions, and then replay it back and see if anything answered us. Usually, we like to do it in each room, so if the place is big enough we’ll split up.”

“Have you actually gotten something?” Patrick’s eyes are wide and there’s a slow chill crawling up his spine. Boy, does he not like creepy stuff. He’s starting to wonder why he agreed to be a part of this.

Pete lets out a soft laugh. Oh. Yeah. That’s why.

“Yeah, it’s like the easiest form of evidence to get. My favorite one was when we got a spirit cussing out Gerard.” Gerard sets his empty cup on the table with a snort.

“He was just pissed because I told you that he told me he thought you were hot.”

“Hey, he wasn’t wrong.” Pete laughs at his own joke and wiggle his eyebrows at Patrick. Patrick tries to keep a blush from rushing onto his face. What was he supposed to say to that? Would it be weird if he agreed? He doesn’t want to deny it, because that would be a complete lie. It would also be kind of mean. Luckily, Pete keeps talking before Patrick’s forced to come up with a reply.

“But, yeah, anyways, we do a lot of cooler stuff than that. If we’re getting activity in a certain place, we bring out this thing called a spirit box. It’s not actually a box, so I don’t really know why it’s called that. Basically, it plays spirit voices that are too low of a frequency for us to hear with our ears back in real time. It’s pretty cool. And if we aren’t getting anything from the EVP session, we’ll walk around with an EMF detector and see if we can find any spikes. Ghosts give off electromagnetic radiation, so if there’s one by us, the detector will tell us. Sometimes Gerard tries to call out and see if anything will show up.”

“We should bring out the ouija board,” Gerard offers. He’s giving Pete a mischievous smile, but Patrick can’t help but think there’s something darker there. He’s not very convinced that his apartment is even haunted, but now he’s starting to worry that it will be by the time they’re done with it.

“What’s with you and that?” Pete exasperates, turning to Patrick. “He asks if we can use the ouija board every single time.”

“I’m always a slut for ouija boards.” Pete rolls his eyes.

“That’s what I meant when I told you not to be surprised when he said something weird.”

“Hey, guys, I’m done!” Josh calls out from the doorway to Patrick’s bedroom, walking into the room and taking a seat next to Patrick. There’s still plenty of space left for Josh to sit, but Patrick, being as sneaky as he is, takes the opportunity to scoot a few inches closer to Pete. It’s not much, but it’s closer than he was before.

“Sweet. Let’s get this started.” Pete takes the cap off his pen and puts it on the opposite end. He swirls it at the top of his page a few times to get the ink flowing before turning to Gerard. “Alright, Gee, you feel anything?”

“Yeah, but it’s faint,” Gerard answers, messing with the hem of his jacket. “It’s almost like something was here, but not anymore.” A shiver runs down Patrick’s spine.

“Something?” he asks, quietly, not quite sure if it’s okay for him to be asking a question. “What is something?” Gerard bites his lip, scrunching his eyebrows together as he closes his eyes in concentration.

“I...I don’t know for sure. It’s too faded for me to make out what it is. But it must have a lot of energy if it left behind something I can sense.”

“Is there somewhere you feel it more strongly?” Pete asks, not even looking up from his scribbling. Patrick doesn’t know how he can write and talk at the same time. It’s pretty impressive.

“Yeah, actually, over by that room.” Gerard’s pointing to Patrick’s music room. He gets off from the couch, walking over and opening the door. Pete and Josh are soon to follow, Pete taking his binder with him. Patrick really doesn’t want to hear what Gerard’s going to say once he steps in there, but he also doesn’t want to be awkwardly left sitting on the couch by himself. So, he forces himself to go follow the others and tries his best to ignore the sinking feeling in his stomach.

Gerard is messing with his hands even more as the enter the room. He’s wringing them, fiddling with his zipper, and constantly shoving them in and out of his pockets. Patrick doesn’t think that’s a good sign.

“Yeah, uh it’s definitely a lot stronger in here,” he says, like it isn’t already obvious by his own behavior. Patrick sneaks a look at Pete. For someone who should be used to this, Pete looks just as confused as Patrick feels.

“What’s it feel like?” Pete asks, a crease making it’s way across his brow.

“Uh, it’s really strange,” Gerard replies, taking slow steps around the room. “Like, it feels denser. It’s kind of suffocating, actually.” It’s at least a full minute before Gerard opens his mouth again. Patrick notices that he keeps looking up at the ceiling.

“I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, so I’m saying this lightly, but this energy almost doesn’t feel… human.”

“Are you serious, Gerard?” Josh speaks up. Patrick swears he hears the tiniest hint of fear in his voice.

“I don’t know! I’m probably wrong. It’s just weird.” Gerard shrugs and stuffs his hands into his pockets again as he pushes past Patrick and Josh to get out of the room. Josh follows him, a concerned look etched on his face. Patrick looks over to Pete and sees him scribbling furiously into his binder. He’ll admit he doesn’t know Pete that well, but, if anything, the look on his face is pure excitement.

Patrick doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

* * *

Nothing big happens after Gerard’s observation. Pete’s sure to sweep the place thoroughly with his EMF detector, and they spend almost an hour in the music room trying to get an EVP, but whatever Gerard felt earlier doesn’t seem to want to come back.

Patrick’s not that disappointed. 

Pete seems to be, however. 

“What the hell!” he groans, throwing himself down next to Patrick on the couch. “How can we get _nothing_. Absolutely fucking nothing.” Josh answers with a sigh from the floor, packing all the voice recorders into a bag. 

“We’ll just have to wait longer,” Gerard says from Patrick’s side, eyeing the music room. “I’m sure it’ll come back sometime.” Patrick really doesn’t want to think about that.

“Fine,” Pete whines, and then he looks over at Patrick with a grin. “You’ll let us come over again tomorrow, right?”

“Y-yeah! Of course,” Patrick stammers out, unprepared. He hopes he’s not blushing. It’s one thing when it’s Pete, but it’s even more embarrassing when his friends are around.

“You’re the best, ‘Trick.” Pete doesn’t even give Patrick a warning before he nonchalantly sticks out a hand and ruffles Patrick’s hair. Patrick’s mind goes blank for a solid minute as he stares at Pete with two blue, wide eyes, a definite blush spreading across his face. He’s pretty sure Pete’s trying not to laugh at him.

After that, Pete pushes off the couch with a sigh, saying they should probably get going back to the campus so they can review the footage the cameras took. Pete’s asks Patrick if they can keep the cameras rolling until they come back tomorrow just in case anything happens during the night. Patrick thinks it’s kind of an odd request, but, with the smile Pete gives him, his mind literally cannot work well enough for him to do anything but nod.

As the three of them are leaving, Josh starts strapping the duffel bags around himself again. Patrick knows that he managed it before, but they look way too heavy for him to be carrying by himself.

“Here,” Patrick says quietly, giving Josh a shaky smile as he holds one of his hands out. “Let me help you with that.” Josh thanks him with a grin and hands him the lighter of the bags. Patrick’s silently grateful for that. He doesn’t work out very often. He doesn’t really work out at all.

The four of them squeeze into the elevator, ignoring Patrick’s worries that it can barely hold one person, let alone three more. They don’t seem too concerned, and Patrick doesn’t want to go down the creepy stairwell alone, so he hops in with them and hopes for the best.

Somehow, they all make it out to the car without incident. Patrick helps Josh load the equipment into the trunk, and waves goodbye to him and Gerard as they climb in the vehicle. Pete stays behind to slam the trunk shut, and then he turns to Patrick.

“Hey, Patrick,” he begins, shoving his hands in his pockets and leaning back against the car. “Is any of this scaring you?”

“Well...” he gulps, eyes shooting down at the ground. The answer is _yes_ , he’s kind of scared of just walking back to his apartment by himself, and he’s trying not to think of how terrified he’s going to be tonight when it’s dark and he’s all alone. But Pete probably already thinks he’s enough of a baby, and he doesn’t really want to add onto that. “N-not really?” 

Nailed it.

“Look,” Pete says, and then he takes one of Patrick’s hands between both of his. His hands are rough on Patrick’s smooth skin, but they’re warm, and Patrick’s already decided he is going to hold those hands again someday.

But, that begs the question that sends Patrick’s stomach into a frenzy of butterflies. Why is Pete holding his hand? Is he just trying to be a good friend to Patrick? Or does it mean something more? Patrick’s heart is set on it being the latter, but he can’t find a single reason why Pete would be flirting with him. He tries to focus on the way his hand is clasped between Pete’s while it lasts. He doesn’t want to forget how it feels.

“You don’t have to lie about it,” Pete tells him softly, giving his hand a squeeze. “It’s okay to be creeped out. But, remember, it’s just a ghost. The most they do is slam doors and knock stuff off shelves. Usually, I mean. But that’s not important.” Patrick doesn’t find his words that reassuring, but his voice is calming and the way his honey eyes are peering down into Patrick’s makes him feel like nothing bad could ever happen to him. “Plus, I’ll be over first thing in the morning. So just hold on until then, okay?”

“Okay,” Patrick manages to squeak out, looking up a couple inches to meet Pete’s gaze. He’s imagining he looks like a heart-eyed teenager, but he’s too caught up in Pete to care at the moment. Pete squeezes his hand one more time before he’s letting go and waving goodbye, hopping into the driver’s seat of his car, shooting one last smile back at Patrick. 

Patrick’s brain doesn’t recover until he’s out of sight. He holds his hand out in front of him, staring down at it with wide eyes. It’s cold now. He shakes his head, turning on his heel to go back into the building. It didn’t mean anything, he tells himself over and over again. Pete’s just friendly. There’s no other explanation.

His heart sinking as he makes his way back into his apartment, he goes straight to his music room. If there’s one thing that can lift his spirits up, it’s music. Opening the door, he hopes that whatever was wrong with him earlier has passed on, and he can get back to being productive.

Except, he has another problem now. He notices something wrong as soon as he steps foot into the room.

His keyboard is missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!!  
> it would make my day if you left a comment ;)


	4. 004

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick does something illegal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg sorry this took so long!! i started college right after i posted the last fic and im finally getting the hang of things. i'm not gonna make any promises i can't keep but i'll try my best not to make you wait so long again :)

His keyboard is gone, and Patrick feels the unmistakable pang of pure _fury_ burning in his gut. His first thought is that somebody must have stolen it. He didn’t lock the door when he went out to the parking lot—someone must have snuck in and taken it. Patrick exhales sharply through his nose, his brows coming together as his mouth curls into a snarl. Why the hell would someone steal a keyboard?

He doesn’t know what to do. Should he go to the police? He doesn’t have a lot of faith that they’ll do anything about it. He’d almost feel selfish asking them to come and find a missing keyboard when they might be needing to save someone’s life or something. But he still needs his keyboard back. He’s practically useless without it; there’s no way he can make music if it’s missing. And if he can’t make music, he really can’t think of any other purpose in his life.

Patrick’s glaring around the room, as if his keyboard will just suddenly reappear, when he remembers the camera sitting in the corner of room. The thief must have been caught on tape! A sigh escapes Patrick’s mouth as his body relaxes a little. He’ll just have Pete get the video when he comes over tomorrow, and then he’ll find out who took it, and get his keyboard back. 

The more he thinks about it,however, the more reasons he comes up with to still be anxious. What if they just took off with it and are already a state away? What if they just threw it on the side of the road and it’s been smashed to pieces?

Patrick runs a hand through his hair and forces himself to leave the room before his mind can imagine anymore wild scenarios. Overthinking it isn’t going to solve anything, he chides himself. Sometimes his creativity is more of a curse than a gift. 

Patrick has no idea how to distract himself until tomorrow when Pete comes backs. He’s never realized it, but, besides working at the record store and playing music, he really doesn’t do that much. Maybe it’s a good thing his apartment is apparently haunted. It’s probably the most exciting thing that’s happened to him for years, and they don’t even have any actual evidence. Okay, if his apartment actually is haunted, it definitely isn’t a good thing, Patrick thinks to himself, remembering how badly he handles horror movies, but if it wasn’t supposedly haunted, Pete probably never would have looked twice at him.

Patrick’s pacing around his living room, trying to find _something_ to do for the rest of the afternoon when he hears it. From upstairs, there’s the distinct sound of piano notes ringing through the ceiling. _At least_ their _keyboard works_ , Patrick thinks with a huff.

The person upstairs is playing a tune Patrick knows; he can’t put a name to it, but it’s a simple, familiar tune. Except, they keep resting for a certain note instead of playing it. It takes a moment, but, with a start, Patrick realizes that it’s the same key that’s broken on his keyboard. He connects the dots after a few more seconds—it has to be his keyboard!

Patrick’s out the door and running up the stairs two at a time before he’s even thought about what exactly he’s going to do once he gets up there. He’s definitely not strong enough to beat anyone up and take it back by force, but maybe if he asks nicely they’ll just give it to him. Probably not, but it’s worth a shot.

His mind catches up with him the moment he plants his feet in front of the door to the apartment above his. He can’t hear the piano anymore, but there’s no way they could have left already. Patrick doesn’t know what else to do, so he just knocks a few times on the door, steps back, and waits for at least a full minute. Nothing happens. He knocks and waits again. Still, nothing. He keeps knocking, until he’s practically just non-stop banging on the door.

He only stops when the door next to him slams open, a red faced woman sticking her head out.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” she screeches, and somehow Patrick feels like he just shrunk four inches. He leaves his mouth hanging open as the woman glares at him, stuttering before he pushes his fright back enough to form words.

“They took my keyb-”

“No one lives there, jackass!” the woman cuts him off, giving him a look dirtier than the stairwell floor.

“B-but, didn’t you hear the piano?” The woman looks like she’s going to rip his head off right there, but, luckily for Patrick, she just gives him a nasty eyeroll and slams the door shut, stringing off a few curses.

His fear fading away once she’s gone and no longer a threat to his well-being, he instead feels the same anger as before building up inside him. With a huff, he flips off the woman’s door. He still has to get in there. _Obviously_ , there has to be somebody inside. He paces outside of it for a few moments, trying to think of some way, any way, he can get on the other side of that door. He could try breaking it down, but he was pretty dang sure he wouldn’t be able to do that unless it was made out of styrofoam.

Patrick stands outside the door for a good two minutes seeing if he can suddenly develop telekinesis and open it just by staring holes in it, but nothing happens. With a sigh, he realizes that he’s going to have to be a little more creative if he wants his keyboard back. He pulls out his phone as he walks back over to the stairs, and sees he has a text from a friend of his. His lips curl up a bit as an idea pops into his head.

He knows how he’s getting that door open.

As he shuffles back to his apartment, Patrick punches a number into his phone. It rings twice before the person on the other end of the line picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Brendon! I have a weird question for you,” Patrick says as he opens the door to his apartment, going back to his music room just to make sure nothing _else_ was missing. He hears Brendon let out a snort through his nose.

“That’s not how I like phone calls to start.” Patrick rolls his eyes.

“It’s nothing bad,” he says, although, he supposes breaking into an apartment might be considered bad.

“Alright, I’ll trust you on that…” Patrick can hear a smile in his voice.

“You know how to pick a lock, right?”

“Don’t act like you weren’t there when we broke into Petco.”

“I wasn’t a part of that! I was just there because I didn’t know you were actually going to _break into_ it!” 

“I know you were thinking about stealing that hamster.”

“Listen, I would have given it a good home, and it’s none of your business.” He pauses to let Brendon finish laughing at him, almost wishing they weren’t talking on the phone so Brendon could see the glare he was giving him. “Anyways, back to the point, I need you to pick a lock for me.” Brendon pauses for a moment, the small bit of laughing he’d still been doing coming to a sharp silence.

“Who are you and what did you do with Patrick?”

“Haha,” Patrick laughs dryly, hoping his deadpan can somehow transfer over the phone, “Seriously. I’ll explain later.”

“Do you really think I’m just gonna come over and pick a lock for you without any explanation?”

“Yes…?”

“Damn Patrick… how am I supposed to argue with that,” Brendon grins, and Patrick hears the sound of him picking his keys up off the counter. “I can’t believe Patrick Stump is asking me to break in somewhere for him.”

“Just get over here,” Patrick sighs and ends the call with a groan. He almost feels like he’s going to regret this, but he’s definitely willing to take any means necessary to get his keyboard back.

And that includes putting up with Brendon Urie.

* * *

It doesn’t take Brendon very long to show up. Patrick wonders if he’s ever been asked to break into a place before. Considering his enthusiasm, he doesn’t think it’s very likely.

“‘Sup, Patrick,” Brendon grins as Patrick opens the door, revealing him spinning a crafted piece of metal in his hand. Patrick assumes that it’s supposed to be a lock pick.

“I’m trusting you with this, Brendon. Please don’t break anything you don’t have to,” Patrick pleads as he steps out, making sure to lock his door this time.

“No promises,” Brendon answers with a snort, following Patrick lead over to the stairs. “You gonna tell why I’m doing this now?”

“Someone broke into my house and stole my keyboard,” Patrick answers honestly, hoping Brendon doesn’t think he’s going overboard just to get his instrument back.

“ _Shit_ ,” Brendon whistles, apparently taking the situation seriously for once. “What the hell, that’s horrible! So you know who took it?”

“I heard it in the apartment above mine.”

“Woah, woah, wait a second,” Brendon says shaking his head, and pulls on Patrick’s arm, getting him to stop climbing the steps and turning to face him, puzzlement on his face. “How do you know it’s yours? Patrick, I’m not breaking into someone’s apartment just to take what _might_ be your keyboard.”

“It is mine!” Patrick argues, continuing to make his way up the stairs. He doesn’t want to wait any longer and risk it being gone by the time they get there. He tells Brendon about how the key on his instrument was broken, and how the same key was broken on the one upstairs. He added in how the lady had yelled at him earlier and told him no one lived there.

Patrick feels anxiety begin to prickle in his stomach as they approach the apartment. He still can’t reassure himself that this is going to end well. Hopefully all they stumble into is an empty room—empty except for his keyboard, that is—and they can just get in and out without any trouble. 

“Alright,” Patrick sighs as he stops in front of the destined room. “Here it is. Seriously, don’t break anything. I’m trusting you with this Brendon.”

Brendon rolls his eyes and cracks his knuckles. “You can count on me, Patty.”

“Don’t call me that,” Patrick sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He tries to remember why exactly he’s friends with Brendon as he crouches down to start working on the lock, an annoyingly smug smirk on his lips.

Patrick watches him work cautiously. It doesn’t _look_ like he’s breaking anything, but, with Brendon, you could never really be sure. A few minutes pass with Brendon absentmindedly humming while he messes with the lock, and Patrick hovers over him anxiously. Brendon shoots up with a whoop as something clicks, so Patrick assumes he opened it and that noise was supposed to happen.

“You’re fucking welcome,” Brendon grins, puffing his chest out, as he twists the doorknob and swings the now unlocked door open. Patrick, despite how badly he wants his keyboard, keeps his feet planted on the hallway’s stained carpet. It’s in that moment that he realizes that he’s five foot four and wears cardigan five out of seven days a week. There isn’t a lot he’s going to be able to do in the event whoever stole his keyboard is still in there.

Brendon’s still standing there with that smug grin on his face, his arms crossed over his chest. He seems to be too engrossed in his pride to realize that Patrick hasn’t moved yet.

“Hey… Brendon…” Patrick starts timidly, looking down to the side and messing with the edge of his sweater sleeve. Hearing his own name is apparently what is takes to pull Brendon out of his head. His attention falls on Patrick with a raised brow, a small hum leaving his mouth.

“Uh… do you wanna do another favor for me?”

“I’m not going to kill anyone for you.”

“What?! No!” Patrick shakes his head a bit before looking back up to Brendon. “I… You should go in first.”

“Seriously?” Brendon laughs, rolling his eyes. “It doesn’t even look like anything’s in there.”

Patrick leans over to peer into the apartment. Brendon’s right—it’s completely empty. There’s nothing but peeling walls and a dusty hardwood floor—which is devoid of a certain keyboard, Patrick takes note of. 

“Where is it?!” he cries, forgetting his previous fear and stepping into the bare room.

“Dude, chill,” Brendon says from behind him, sticking out a hand to point over to a small hallway with a door on each side of it. “There’s more rooms right there. It’s probably in one of them.” Patrick doesn’t take the time to answer; the well being of his instrument is more important than Brendon. His footsteps are accompanied by creaks of the floor as he hustles across the room over to the little hallway. He only pauses as his hand rests on the doorknob to the room on the left, unsure of what he’s going to be met with inside. He takes a moment to brace himself, and he gives the knob a sharp twist and slams it open. A sigh of relief puffs out of his mouth—it’s just a bathroom. And, besides what might be mold growing in the corner of the bathtub, there’s nothing that looks like it’s going to kill Patrick.

That leaves the door on the right. Patrick spins on his heel, slowly, to face it. Brendon’s followed him over, and is looking into the bathroom.

“Daaaamn,” he whistled, disgust bright across his face. “I don’t think I’ve even seen a public bathroom this gross. And I’ve been to New York, Patrick. New York.”

Patrick ignores his friend’s comments and places his hand on the next doorknob. It’s time for the moment of truth—whether or not his keyboard is here. He sends out a silent prayer as he slowly opens the door, spacing out the seconds of suspense. It’s when the door is halfway open that he sees it—his keyboard, unharmed and in one piece, placed against the wall on the opposite side of the room. 

A cross between a squeak and a shout leaves Patrick’s mouth as a grin springs across his face, and as soon as the new information is processed in his head, he’s practically leaping across the room to retrieve his lost treasure.

He only makes it halfway across the room, however. He doesn’t even realize something’s gone wrong until he finds himself on the floor, his vision focusing in and out of his control. He’s pretty sure that Brendon’s calling out to him, but it sounds like he’s a whole apartment away.

He manages to turn his head back enough to see Brendon by the door, fuzzy and blurred, but he can still make out shock written into his posture. And, although his mind is groggy, a black shape behind Brendon catches his dulled attention. Was it the bathroom door? Before he can try and focus more on it, Brendon is rushing forward, blocking it out of his vision.

“Patrick! Can you hear me?!” This time Brendon’s voice is clear as day, and Patrick shoots up, sucking in a breath of air as if he’s been underwater.

“Wh-what just happened?” Patrick recoils at how his voice comes out; it’s raspy, as if he’s just spent the last two hours singing his lungs out.

“Dude, you just fell to the ground all of a sudden! Did you fucking trip? Because I swear to fucking god if you scared the hell out of me just because you managed to trip on fucking nothing, I’m gonna f-”

“I didn’t trip!” Patrick stubbornly cuts him off, pulling his brows together. He’s kind of clumsy, but he’s only done that once, maybe a couple times. Maybe a little more. It’s unimportant. “I just- I don’t know! All of a sudden I was just on the floor!”

“Okay, that sounds kind of fake, but, let’s just get your fucking keyboard and get out.” Brendon holds out a hand, and Patrick gratefully latches it and pulls himself up. He almost falls again as he stands up; his vision goes fuzzy again, and his knees give out. Luckily, Brendon’s reflexes are quick enough to keep him upright.

“Woah, woah, woah, are you sure you’re okay? Did you hit your head or something?” Patrick can’t give him an answer. His head definitely doesn’t feel amazing at the moment, but he feels more like he just ran a marathon or two and needs to go sleep for a week.

“I’m fine,” he pants. Just the way he says it makes it obvious he’s not fine, but Brendon doesn’t press on it. He pulls himself away from Brendon, showing him he can at least walk alright, and goes over to pick his keyboard off of the ground. With a groan, he hoists it up into his arms. It’s a lot heavier than he remembers. 

“Patrick, let me get that. You should take it easy,” Brendon chides, rushing over to take the instrument out of Patrick’s arms and into his own. Patrick just gives him a soft thank you and leads the way out of the apartment.

The two make it back down to Patrick’s apartment without incident, neither of them speaking a word until the keyboard is placed back in it’s rightful place. Patrick’s forehead scrunches a bit. He felt like everything would go back to being fine after he got his keyboard back, but he doesn’t feel very relieved. 

He thanks Brendon about a million times, trying to not let his odd mood seep into his voice, and shoos him out of his apartment so he can pass out. Brendon tries to get Patrick to let him stay just incase, but Patrick insists he’s fine and that Brendon’s already done more than enough for him. Brendon finally leaves, only after telling Patrick to call him if he needs to.

Patrick shuts the door with a sigh, and he feels his energy level drop again. He barely even make it to the couch before his eyes are drooping shut, and he’s asleep as soon as his head hits the cushion.


	5. 005

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> js i wrote this at like 3 am on no sleep so if there are errors pls bear with me :p

The first thing Patrick notices is his keyboard. The second thing he notices is that it’s back up in the upstairs apartment. The third thing he notices is that he is also in the apartment upstairs.

Patrick doesn’t pay a lot of mind to these facts. As far as he’s concerned, he just wants to get his keyboard back again. He tries to take a step forward, and it feels like he’s wading through honey. The harder he tries to get over to his keyboard, the slower he seems to go, and the more effort he has to put into each movement. After what feels like hours, Patrick doesn’t think he’s gotten any further across the room. 

That’s when he sees it. Or, senses it, more like. Patrick can’t actually see what he’s sensing, but he has a very clear idea that _something_ is behind him. And coming closer.

Patrick tries to run away, or turn around, or at least move his head enough to get a look at whatever’s in the room with him, but he’s like a fly caught in a web. He can feel that hairs on the back of his neck stick up straight as the presence drifts closer and closer. Patrick’s body isn’t moving at all, but his mind is hyperventilating. The entity is teasing him, drawing out it’s steps across the room and letting his panic grow with each passing second.

He swears he hears a very quiet, low laugh.

Patrick doesn’t see it happening, but all of a sudden his throat closes up, as if someone has wrapped their hands around his throat and is choking him mercilessly. Patrick‘s mind is yelling at him to stick out his hands and push it off or kick it away from him, but his body is still frozen, allowing his lungs to scream without protest. 

It’s not until he’s seeing black spots that his muscles come back into his control. Patrick’s arms immediately fly up to his throat, but, with a wave of helplessness hitting him, he realizes there’s nothing there for him to grab and pull off of himself. He can feel his consciousness becoming dimmer—he doesn’t have a lot of time left. He tries to scream for help; it’s an apartment— somebody has to be able to hear him. But his throat is still closed, and no sound is coming out. He’s trying, using what’s left of his strength to try and get any kind of sound out-

Patrick opens his eyes with a gasp, gasping partly because he isn’t being choked anymore, and partly because Pete is about two inches from his face.

“You left your door unlocked.” 

In the back of his mind, Patrick is semi-aware of the fact that he’s probably staring at Pete like a gaping fish, but he’s still too busy trying to figure out what’s happening.

“Are you okay?” This time Pete’s voice is enough to pull him out of his stupor and realize that Pete is _right_ there. 

“I-I’m fine?!” Patrick stutters out as he shoots up into a sitting position, very obviously not fine. He looks down at Pete, who is crouched down on the floor, and hopes that he doesn’t laugh at him for being so dumb.

“That was probably the shittest attempt at lying I’ve ever seen,” Pete snorts, pulling himself up onto the couch and sitting himself next to Patrick. Patrick tries to fight back a blush; he really doesn't need to make an even bigger idiot of himself. It’s then that Patrick realizes he must have slept through the night and, recalling what Pete had said, had left his door unlocked _again_.

“What time is it?! Did I really leave my door unlocked?!” Patrick bursts out in an apologetic ramble, guilt piling up. “How long were you knocking!? I didn’t think I would sleep for that long! Oh my god, I’m so s-” Pete cuts him off with another laugh, getting him to shut up when he puts a hand on Patrick’s shoulder.

“Dude, don’t worry about it,” he says, giving Patrick a lighthearted push, while Patrick tries to stammer out another apology. “You don’t even want to know how many times I’ve overslept for shit. Just this semester. It’s not good.” Patrick laughs at Pete’s words, hoping it doesn’t sound too forced. He looks around and sees Gerard and Josh in the kitchen, Josh messing with the camera in there while Gerard was saying something to him.

“By the way… you gotta tell me why you were so freaked out, you know that, right?” Pete says from beside him, bumping Patrick with his shoulder to get him to spill.

“It’s not a big deal,” Patrick answers, although he can’t repress a shudder that runs through him when the dream returns to his mind.

“Yes it is! You’re obviously _not_ okay, and that’s not okay with m-” Pete suddenly cuts himself off, and Patrick, against his better judgement, finds his face turning towards him. “Patrick… what the hell is that…?” 

His tone sends a flash of panic through Patrick. It doesn’t help that he’s still jumpy from his dream. He has no idea what he’s talking about, and that must show on his face, because Pete, almost shakily, brings a hand up to point at Patrick’s neck. Pete lightly traces his finger along what must be a mark on Patrick’s skin. Patrick winces a little as he feels a small pain where Pete’s applying pressure.

He instinctively brings his own hand up to his neck, searching for the area he supposedly is wounded at. He doesn’t feel anything except for the same bit of pain as before.

“I-I probably just scratched myself on accident or something…” Patrick mumbles, trying to recall if he’d actually done that or not. “It’s not a big deal.”

“That doesn’t look like you just scratched yourself,” Pete argues, giving Patrick that stubborn pout. He just keeps looking at Patrick, as if he thinks Patrick has an actual explanation for it.

Patrick stares off for a moment in thought, trying to remember when he could have gotten a scratch on his neck. That only time he could think of was...yesterday when he tripped in the upstairs apartment.

“When you did what?” Pete asks, pulling him out of his thoughts. He must have said something out loud and not realized it.

“It’s nothing!” he says little too loudly, shaking his head and waving his arms in denial. Pete doesn’t look fooled. Patrick can’t even come up with a reason for why he doesn’t want to tell Pete; he just has an underlying feeling that he should just forget what happened earlier.

It’s then that he remember what he needed to tell Pete so badly. He sees Pete about to say something, but cuts him off before he can continue the argument.

“I just remembered! I need you to check the camera from yesterday!” That got Pete’s attention—immediately Patrick could tell his mind had shifted topics and he’d probably already forgotten about the scratches on Patrick’s neck.

“Did something happen?” Pete asks, leaning in towards Patrick, excitement unmistakable in his voice. Patrick knows Pete is thinking he’s talking about something supernatural, and Patrick hesitates for a moment. He finds Pete’s excitement more adorable than anything, and he doesn’t want to ruin it.

“Well… yes,” Patrick begins, trying not to lead Pete on too much, “but it’s not what you think! Someone just broke in and stole something yesterday.”

“ _Just_?!” Pete bursts out, his demeanor doing a one-eighty in the blink of an eye. “What did they take? Did you call the police? Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine!” Patrick tells him, almost laughing at Pete’s sudden anger. He can’t believe Pete’s getting this worked up. Especially over _him_. “They stole my keyboard when I went out to the parking lot with you. I got it back though. It’s fine now.”

“Oh my god, you scared the hell out of me,” Pete sighs, absentmindedly placing a hand on Patrick’s back. Patrick hopes Pete doesn’t notice him tense up, or the blush that most definitely is making it’s way across his face and down his neck. He lets out a nervous laugh before opening his mouth again.

“It scared me too!” he chimes in, feeling a twang in his chest when Pete’s smile widens at his words.

“So how’d you catch them?” Patrick face blanks for a moment, and he notices that puts Pete back on edge.

“Well… I don’t actually _know_ who did it…” Patrick admits, scratching the back of his neck. “But, I got my keyboard back, and that’s what matters.” In the back of his mind, he knows that he should still probably care about who broke into his home, but he’s getting the same feeling as he was when he was talking about the scratches on his neck—he just wants to switch the topic and never bring it up again.

“Are you kidding me?” Pete snaps, concern flooding back into his eyes. “You need to find out who did it so they can’t do it again!”

“Well…” Patrick gulps, looking over to his music room, partially so he doesn’t have to acknowledge the look Pete’s giving him, “They must have gotten caught on the camera in there.” Pete follows Patrick’s line of vision over to the door of the music room, his face lighting up at Patrick’s words.

“Josh!” he calls out, jumping up from the couch and practically running over to the kitchen were Josh and Gerard still were. “I need you to check out the camera in the music room! It’s important!” Josh just gives him a thumbs up with a grin and makes his way over to carry out the request without complaint. After he’s gone, Pete turns over to Gerard, an eyebrow slightly raised.

“Feel anything weird?” Gerard hesitates for a moment, thinking over the question as he takes a sip of the coffee he’d brought. Pete notices him look over at Patrick on the couch before his attention falls back on Pete.

“Don’t tell Patrick this,” he says under his breath, and Pete can already feel his stomach sinking. The last thing he wants is something bad happening to Patrick. He doesn’t want anything bad to happen to any of them, but it’s not the same with Patrick. He has no idea what he could be getting into. “But you know that kind of residue I was feeling yesterday? Well, I feel it on him now.” The words send a pang of guilt through his chest.

“Well… I would assume,” Pete shrugs, trying to downplay how terrifying those words were. “I mean, he’s been around all this energy, you’d expect it to start clinging to him.”

“That’s not how it works,” Gerard says, shaking his head and glancing back over to Patrick to make sure he wasn’t listening. Pete glances over his shoulder. Patrick is still on the couch, but he’s looking over into the music room, probably trying to see if Josh is finding anything on the camera.

“The energy I felt in the room is still here, that’s for sure. But I feel it on Patrick, _coming from_ Patrick, and it’s a hell of a lot stronger than the rest of the room.” Pete feels his mouth go dry. That’s not good. That’s _really_ not good.

“Gerard,” he says in a hushed voice, leaning in towards him to make sure there’s no way Patrick will be able to hear them. “Don’t tell me you think he’s possessed.” Gerard bites his lip and looks down at his coffee cup, which doesn’t reassure Pete in the slightest. 

“It’s…. it’s possible that he _was_ ,” Gerard admits, his voice stressing his uncertainty as he looks back up to Pete. “But, if he wasn’t, he still probably had some sort of contact with it.” Pete’s stomach sinks again when he remembers the scratches on Patrick’s neck. If he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten them… Pete has a pretty good idea of what they came from.

“Has he told you anything that happened to him between yesterday and now?” Gerard asks, taking another sip of coffee.

“No…” Pete mumbles, looking back over his shoulder at Patrick. He catches Patrick looking over at him and Gerard before he jumps and snaps his head down to his hands. Pete would probably have laughed if he wasn’t starting to worry about what exactly he’d dragged Patrick into. “But, he has these three scratches down the side of his neck, and he told me he doesn’t know where they came from.”

“Three?” Gerard repeats, raising a brow. “That’s not a good.” 

“Don’t remind me,” Pete groans, running a hand down his face. “Don’t fucking tell him that’s a sign of demonic activity.” Gerard throws up his free hand in surrender, a fake pout on his face.

“Wasn’t planning on it.” Pete lets out a sigh as he turns away from Gerard and back over to Patrick. He’s about to walk over to him, and possibly start apologizing profusely, when he sees Josh appear in the doorway to the music room, an obvious frown on his face.

“You guys need to see this.” Pete looks over to Patrick and catches his attention. He can’t ignore the look of anxiousness Patrick is giving him, and he hopes he’s not reciprocating that expression. The last thing he needs is to do is freak him out even more. Pete nods his head over to the music room, silently telling Patrick that he needs to see whatever Josh found too.

Pete waits for Patrick to get up from the couch so he can go over to his side and walk into the room with him. Josh is at Patrick’s desk, his laptop placed on the only bit of surface that wasn’t covered with paper. He has the camera plugged into it, the video it had taken pulled up on the screen. He waits for Gerard to shuffle before he starts to explain what he’d found. Pete sneaks a quick glance over to Gerard. He looks noticeably uncomfortable to be back in the room. That can’t be good.

“So,” Josh begins, pointing to his computer screen. “This is right before we all left yesterday.” He plays the video, and the four of them can all be seen walking out from the living room. Josh pauses it again and looks back to the rest of the group. “And then, uh… Just… wait for it, I guess.”

Patrick looks over at Pete, trying to gauge the expression on his face. The way his eyebrows are pulled together and his lips are drawn into a pout isn’t reassuring Patrick of what he saw earlier when Pete was talking to Gerard. He couldn’t hear what they had been talking about, but he could tell by the way Gerard kept looking over at him that they were saying something about him. He isn’t completely sure he wants to know what it was.

His attention turns back to the laptop once Josh presses play again. He feels the anxiety bubbling up in his stomach—what did Josh find? Nothing happens in the video for at least a full minute, and the suspense isn’t helping Patrick’s anxiety at all. He wasn’t outside for very long—something must be happening soon. At that moment the screen cuts out to static—no warning or anything. Patrick lets out a little gasp at the sudden change, bringing his hand up to cover his mouth in slight embarrassment. He watches as the screen continues to display static for what only feels like a handful of seconds before the view of his music room returns. And, of course, his keyboard is missing.

Patrick doesn’t know what to do with the new information. How could someone disable the camera without touching it? He looks to Pete, unconsciously assuming that he’ll have an answer for this. The expression Patrick’s met with tells him that he doesn’t.

“Well… that’s… something,” Pete mumbles, his eyes still focused on the now paused video on Josh’s laptop. “Patrick,” he says, turning to face him, “How exactly did you get your keyboard back?” Patrick opens his mouth to answer, when Gerard’s moody voice cuts in before he can start.

“Yeah, we should not do this in here,” he says, already halfway out the door. “I can’t stand the aura of this room.” Patrick doesn’t like the sound of that. He’s out next, not wanting to stay and find out what‘s causing Gerard’s uneasiness. Pete and Josh follow them over to the couch in the living room, Gerard taking the arm chair and Josh and Patrick sitting on either side of Pete.

“Okay, so…” Patrick starts timidly, wringing his hands, not entirely comfortable with being the center of attention. “One of the keys is broken on my keyboard. So, after I came back and found out it was gone, I started hearing another keyboard upstairs, and the same key wasn’t working.” Patrick’s looks up from his hands to see Pete nodding at him, listening attentively. He can’t help but feel his stomach flutter a bit from the way Pete’s looking at him. He just wishes that he wasn’t talking about someone breaking into his house and stealing from him.

“So, uh, then I went upstairs and tried to get into the apartment, but some woman next door told me that no one lived there.” Patrick shudders, remembering how rudely she’d yelled at him. He hopes that he never has to encounter her again.

“Then how did you get it back?” Pete asks, and Patrick feels another blush spring to his cheeks, embarrassed to tell him the answer.

“I...I, um, I called my friend and he picked the lock for me…” Patrick’s sure that if Pete had been drinking something he would have spit it out.

“Are you kidding?” he snorts, laughing into his hand and almost doubling over. Patrick barely catches himself thinking about how cute he looks when he laughs that hard.

“I wish…” Patrick laughs softly, averting his gaze over to the coffee table. “But, uh, I’m not. So, we just went in and got it. Nobody was there. It was completely empty besides the keyboard.”

“Did anything happen while you were in there?” Patrick’s head shoots up, startled to hear Gerard’s voice come into the conversation. Patrick’s eyes meet Gerard’s, and the way Gerard’s looking at him, almost glaring, as if he thinks Patrick’s purposely hiding something from them. Patrick wasn’t going to mention that he fell, partly because it was embarrassing and partly because he didn’t have an explanation for it. Gerard’s stare is even more unsettling to Patrick as he wonders how Gerard could have known that he was leaving that out. He makes a mental note that he’s glad Pete isn’t psychic.

“Well… yes,” Patrick admits, looking over to Pete to gauge his reaction. He just gives Patrick a nod to keep going, his eyes focused completely on him. “When I was walking across the room, I… I don’t really know how to explain it. All of a sudden I was just on the floor. I think I tripped, or something.”

“You would remember tripping,” Gerard states bluntly, taking a sip of his coffee. “Did you feel anything weird?”

“I don’t think so…” Patrick responds, not really wanting to think back to the incident. “I guess I remember my vision being really blurry for about a minute.” Gerard just hums in acknowledgement and takes another sip. Patrick doesn’t know him that well, but he seems like he’s dissatisfied with the answer.

Pete doesn’t like Patrick’s answer either. Paired up with what Gerard was saying about the energy surrounding Patrick earlier, Pete’s pretty certain that Patrick didn’t just trip over nothing and find himself on the floor. He also doesn’t like the sound of what Josh’s footage implies, or the scratches he found on Patrick’s neck. 

Pete finds himself in a moment of self reflection. Normally, he would have started feeling a rush—whatever they’re dealing with is obviously bigger than anything they’ve ever found before. If he’s smart, he doesn’t have a doubt that he’s close to collecting evidence of something that could skyrocket his career in ghost hunting. But, he finds that he’s not feeling excited. He’s nervous.

And guilty.

He looks over at the person next to him and knows that it’s only because he’s involved. He knows it’s dumb because they barely know each other, but he cares about Patrick. Pete’s barely been able to take his mind off of him since he met him in the coffee shop. He has enough self control to at least not use the word “love”, but he can at least say he’s infatuated with him. And seeing him stuck in the middle of this mess is enough to kill any amount of enjoyment he normally would have gotten.

“And,” Pete starts again, catching Patrick’s attention, “You still don’t know where those scratches came from?” Patrick just shakes his head, bringing a hand up to feel for the marks on his neck again. Before, Pete was suspicious that he was just brushing it off as not being a big deal, but now Patrick looks like he genuinely has no idea where he came from. That’s never a good sign.

“Well,” Pete says, looking at all three of them, hoping his worry was showing through onto his face, “We’ve gotta figure out what the hell is happening. Let’s go upstairs.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!!! a comment would be super appreciated :)


	6. 006

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> something happens probably

“Let’s go upstairs.” Pete can tell Patrick isn’t too happy with that idea. “You can stay down here if you want, Patrick,” he offers with a soft smile. He’s already gotten Patrick more than involved in this, and now he sure as hell isn’t going to make him do anything he doesn’t want to. But, Patrick doesn’t seem too pleased with that offer either.

“I’m fine with going,” he says, reciprocating Pete’s smile, although Pete can hear the nervousness hidden behind the false confidence. “I have to show you where it is, anyways.”

“Okay, well, just leave if you feel like you need to.”

Patrick just nods, but inside he feels a bit of shame eating away at him. Does Pete really see him as being that big of a wimp? He can handle being in the apartment. It’s just a room. Where he may or may not have almost died, but that’s unimportant.

Patrick’s the first to stand up from the couch, Pete immediately following him as the other two tag behind. Patrick leads them past the elevator, not in the mood to take the risk, and they go up the stairs without a word. Patrick looks over his shoulder for a moment once they get to the top of the stairs, just to make sure the other three are still following him, and he sees a video camera in Josh’s hands.

“You’re going to record this?” Patrick asks him, raising an eyebrow. Even though the answer is obvious, Josh doesn’t seem to mind.

“Yep! Just in case anything happens,” he grins, and Patrick wonders how he can say that so happily. He, at least, is hoping nothing happens.

Patrick stops in front of the door to the apartment above his. He’d just assumed that Brendon had left it unlocked and, twisting the door handle and successfully swinging it open, his presumption is confirmed.

“Well… here it is,” he announces awkwardly, gesturing to the now open door. Gerard walks in first, as if it’s the rule that he always goes in before the other two, and Pete comes next, Josh following him, camera ready. Now that’s he’s actually up here, Patrick finds that he doesn’t want to go into the room even more than he thought. He’s definitely not a psychic, but he swears he can feel some kind of bad energy coming out of the apartment. 

But, he doesn’t want to look like the helpless kid that Pete seems to think he is, so somehow he finds the courage to step into the room, and hovers around the door while Pete starts asking Gerard questions.

“Do you feel anything?” he asks, watching Gerard move around the room. Gerard paces along the floor, stopping for a couple seconds in certain places before mumbling something to himself and moving on again.

“It’s not here,” he grumbles and turns to Pete after a minute or two, a frustrated crease in his brow. “Anymore, at least.”

Pete nods his head, looking slightly disappointed, before asking another question.

“Do you feel it stronger coming from anywhere else?” Gerard’s eyes immediately shift to the small hallway, and Patrick feels a chill slowly move down his spine. He keeps his feet planted firmly at the door as Gerard makes his way over to the hallway, and Pete and Josh follow him. Patrick tries to ignore the hair standing up on his neck as Gerard passes by the bathroom door and rests his hand on the handle of the other door and twists to swing it open.

He doesn’t hesitate to step into the room, Josh disappearing behind the wall as he follows Gerard with the camera. Pete just about walks into the room after him, when he stops and turns as he realizes Patrick is still standing at the front door.

“You know, you’ve got three ghost investigators with you this time, you don’t have to worry about anything attacking you,” Pete half-laughs, his smile flatlining when he sees Patrick pale a few more shades at his words. _Way to go, dumbass_ , he mentally facepalms as he walks over to where Patrick is standing by the door.

Patrick wills his legs to start moving across the threshold, ignoring every sign his body is telling him that it’s a bad idea.

“I’m not scared,” Patrick says as he walks past Pete over to the other room, a laugh tinging his voice. It’s a complete lie—he can feel his heart rate speeding up with each step he takes further into the apartment—but he doesn’t want Pete to see him as completely helpless.

Patrick turns his head back when he hears a small laugh escape Pete’s lips, shooting him a glare before marching into the room, his pride overcoming his fear. Pete walks in behind him a second later, his eyes taking in the bare room.

“So,” he begins, turning to Gerard and crossing his arms over his chest. “What are you feeling?” Gerard just shrugs and answers in a disinterested tone.

“Exactly what you think. It’s stronger in here, but it’s not actually _here_.” Pete’s obviously frustrated by the way he pinches his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He’s thinking, Patrick can tell.

“It’s running away from us, then?” Pete theorizes, looking at Gerard, who nods his head softly. “Well, we’ve gotta catch it then.” Pete looks around at the three of them, a confident, maybe too confident, smirk plastered on his face. Gerard just sighs and rolls his eyes, Josh beams back and him, nodding his head eagerly, while Patrick’s raising an eyebrow.

“How do you catch a ghost…?” he practically murmurs, only half-realizing that he says the question out loud. He’s taken a bit by surprise when a laugh bubbles out of Pete, and he feels the smallest blush on his cheeks. Pete’s laugh makes it sound like it was a dumb question, and Patrick’s embarrassed even though he really shouldn’t be.

“We’re going to do an investigation,” Pete answers, as if it was obvious. “Wait up here all night. See what happens.” Patrick nods in partial-understanding, hoping that Pete’s not expecting him to join them. Because, no matter how hot he is, there’s no way in hell he’s spending even another five minutes in this damn apartment. 

“Is it cool if we set up HQ in your apartment, Patrick?” Pete asks 

Patrick nods, not really knowing what that means, but, as long as the ghost stays upstairs, anything’s fine with him.

“Cool,” Pete smiles, like he doesn’t know what that does to Patrick. “You’ll be downstairs with Josh then.” Patrick sees Josh send him a wink from behind his camera. He can deal with that.

After that, the four of them head back down to Patrick’s apartment. Patrick practically runs out of the room as soon as Pete signals for them to leave, the creepy aura too thick for him to be comfortable.

Pete, following Patrick, turns around to face Gerard and Josh just as he’s about to enter the apartment. “Hey, you two should go back and get all the stuff we need for tonight. I want to stay here just in case anything happens,” he says, not being able to keep the smallest hint of red off of his face.

“Mmhmm,” Gerard hums, rolling his eyes. “I’m sure that’s exactly why you want us to leave you two al-”

“We’ll be back later,” Josh breaks in with a laugh, already pushing Gerard over to the door. “Don’t have too much fun.” The two of them leave in a laughing fit, Pete flipping them off with a huff and praying that Patrick didn’t just hear that. He turns back around once Gerard and Josh have rounded the corner and are out of sight, and breaths out a sigh of relief when he sees that Patrick is too busy making sure his music room is untouched to have heard them.

He’s standing over by his mess of a desk, frantically shuffling through piles of papers. Pete’s about to walk up to him and make a stupid joke or maybe try and make him blush when he realizes there’s something wrong. When he’s close enough, he hears Patrick mumbling to himself about something being missing. All thoughts of joking around and flirting with him are paused, at least for the moment.

“Patrick?” Pete questions, putting a hand on his shoulder. “What’s wrong?” Patrick doesn’t turn around to answer. Pete thinks he can feel him shaking.

“A-All of my sheet music. It’s just… _gone_. They’re all blank.” His voice sounds like he’s trying not to cry.

“Are you serious?” Pete says it more to himself than Patrick as he goes to stand next to him and rifle through the papers with him. There isn’t a single one with writing on it. Pete knows these papers were filled yesterday—he’d snuck a few peeks at them when Patrick wasn’t looking. 

A sniffle breaks his attention away from the blank papers. Pete’s eyes shoot to Patrick, who’s got the beginnings of tears brimming his eyes. The sight breaks Pete’s heart in two, and he doesn’t even stop to question it before he’s wrapping his arms around Patrick and pulling him into his chest.

“Pete, I’m fine,” Patrick argues weakly, trying to break away from him, “Seriously, it’s fine.” His voice breaks on the last word, and Pete just tightens his hold.

“Just shut up, Patrick,” Pete says into his hair, trying to make that sound as comforting as possible. Maybe it wasn’t the best choice of words, but Patrick just nods into Pete’s shoulder and reciprocates the hug. It’s only a second or two before Pete can feel Patrick tremble, his small sobs being muffled by Pete’s jacket. Pete mumbles meaningless things to try and get him to calm down, rubbing circles into his back.

“I’ll get rid of whatever’s doing this, Patrick,” Pete practically whispers once Patrick’s sniffles become almost silent. “I promise.” 

Patrick just nods into Pete’s shoulder. He feels like he should be embarrassed, and, now that he’s calmed down enough to not be at risk for having a mental breakdown, he feels like he should push away from Pete and get back to whatever they should be doing, but… it’s just so _nice_ like this. It sure as hell beats the little touches and two seconds of hand holding he’s gotten so far. Pete’s so warm, and Patrick’s never felt so at place in as long as he can remember. He just wants to stay like this forever.

Forever doesn’t last long however, when he hears a cough at the door. He feels a blush spread from his head to his toes as he rips himself away from Pete, scrubbing off whatever tears are still on his face. Gerard’s standing just outside the room with his arms crossed over his chest, a definite smirk etched into his mouth. Pete grumbles something at him and puts an arm around Patricks shoulder to draw him back into himself, the barest hint of a blush on Pete’s cheeks. 

“Did you get everything?” Pete asks as he pulls Patrick out of the room, giving Gerard a glare. Josh answers instead.

“Yep!” he says with a grin, taking out a piece of equipment that Patrick can’t identify. “We just need to set it up upstairs.” Just the mention of the place is enough to send a chill up Patrick’s spine. Pete squeezes his shoulder, reminding him that he doesn’t have to worry. Pete will take care of it. And he’ll be fine.

Patrick just sits on the couch as they take all their weird machines from their cases. He would help, but he’s pretty sure he would just be getting in their way. At some points, Pete starts showing Patrick the piece of equipment that he’d just unpacked, telling him all about what it does and how it works until Gerard yells at him to get back to work. 

Patrick, despite the shitty situation, can’t stop smiling.

* * *

After an hour or so, there’s a number of monitors set up on Patrick’s coffee table, and cameras and weird machines scattered across his floor. Pete’s sitting next to him on the couch, their legs pressed against each other, fiddling with putting a fresh set of batteries into a voice recorder. Patrick turns his head to look out the window. The sun's almost setting, only a couple last rays of light breaking through into his apartment. Once it gets dark, it’s time for them to start.

Patrick shifts his attention back to Pete. He doesn’t look nervous at all. In Patrick’s opinion, he looks excited, even. Patrick remembers that this is what he lives for, after all. He can’t understand it, but it’s cute, so it’s whatever. 

Gerard and Josh have both been in and out of the room, taking up cameras on stands to set them up in the other apartment. Pete pops his batteries in his voice recorder with a click, a satisfied hum leaving his mouth as he sets it down on the coffee table. He starts bouncing his leg, his thigh rubbing against Patrick’s. 

“Excited, much?” Patrick jokes, the corners of his mouth pulling up as he raises an eyebrow. Pete looks back at him with a bright smile, his eyes wide.

“You have no idea,” he practically laughs. Patrick would be really weirded out if it wasn’t so cute. 

After a few moments of silence, Patrick looks back to Pete and bites his lip. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” He’s pretty sure it’s a stupid question, but he wants to ask anyways. He wants to hear Pete says it’s going to be fine.

“Of course I am,” Pete snorts, bumping Patrick’s shoulder with his own. “Honestly, if we’re lucky all we’ll get is some voices. Maybe an orb or two.” Pete lets out a sigh and leans back against the couch. “But that’s pretty much all that ever happens.”

“Do you want things to go bad?”

“Well…” Pete rolls the words over on his tongue before he answers. “Not necessarily _bad_... Just something big enough to turn heads. Get people’s attention.” Patrick bites his lip again and hesitates for a moment before looking into Pete’s eyes.

“I’m worried for you,” he admits quietly, breaking eye contact as soon as the words leave his mouth, trying to fight down a rising blush. Pete’s silent for a moment, before he breaks into a smile and sits up, tousling the top of Patrick’s hair.

“Don’t be.” Patrick lets out an indignant grumble, but he doesn’t move away. It’s at that moment that he realizes how close Pete’s face is to his. Pete’s looking right at him, his honey brown eyes peering right into Patrick’s. Normally, Patrick knows he would be squirming away from it, but, for some reason, it feels alright.

Before he knows, it Pete’s leaning in closer to him, and Patrick’s mind is buzzing, finally catching up with the all the flirting they’ve been doing. Pete actually flirted with him back. _Him_ , Patrick “barely even ever had a date” Stump. He decides to close his eyes before his brain overthinks everything.

He can almost feel Pete’s lips on his when the front door slams open, and Patrick almost jumps off the end of the couch. Pete is still in the same spot, looking barely moved by the noise, just sending a disgruntled look to the two people walking into the room. 

“Sorry to interrupt your make-out session,” Gerard drawls as he plops himself down on the couch in between Pete and Patrick, “but some of us actually have things to do.” Pete responds with a few choice words and a glare, before he stands up and stretches.

“Well, I guess we’re already to start then,” he says, shoving the voice recorder and a walkie talkie into his pocket. “Josh is gonna be down here with a walkie talkie to tell us if he sees anything we miss,” he tells Patrick, who nods in understanding. “Don’t hesitate to use it and tell us if you feel anything off. We need to know.”

“Got it.” Pete flashes him a smile and turns to Gerard.

“You ready, asshole?” 

“Yeah, I _guess_ ,” he grins, standing up and shoving his hands in his pockets. Patrick wishes the both of them luck as they head out the door, and he feels the smallest bit of anxiety gnawing at his stomach as he goes to sit next to Josh on the couch.

He doesn’t have a good feeling about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it took so long to get this posted :/ ive had like 0 energy lately  
> hoping to be posting more this week! this fic is probably about halfways done now and i'd really like to do nanowrimo this year, even if i get a late start :) (even if i dont do it for nanowrimo stay tuned for another fic after this ones done)


	7. 007

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People talk about things.

The investigation isn’t as exciting as Patrick thought it was going to be. From what he’s seen in horror movies, he was half-expecting things to start flying around and disembodied voices to start screaming once they’d started. Apparently, it doesn’t really happen like that. Patrick’s torn between feeling let-down and relieved.

Painfully, Patrick has spent the past forty minutes with his head in his hands, watching Pete and Gerard do absolutely _nothing_. Patrick knows that according to Pete, it wouldn’t be nothing, but to anyone else, it definitely was. Patrick had vaguely recalled Pete telling him it was called an “EVP session”, trying to record a spirit voice on tape. Patrick’s starting to believe that that’s not even possible, because the two upstairs have evidently had no luck. Every time they would finish listing off questions and playback the recording, they would only hear the sound of their own voices and start the cycle over again with a groan.

Finally, Patrick notices from the camera in the main room, Gerard seems to have given up trying to record a voice. Sitting down on the hardwood floor against the wall, he drops his voice recorder next to himself and pulls a phone out of his pocket. Patrick can’t blame him—the only thing that had kept him from nodding off was the other person upstairs.

With an almost nonexistent smile pulling at the edges of his lips, Patrick’s attention turns back to Pete. He’s in the other room, still pacing around with his voice recorder held out in front of him. Patrick doesn’t really understand why he’s so stubborn about it, but he supposes it’s like how he is with music. Until he’d moved here, that is. He’s tried to play a couple more times, but he still hasn’t been able to get anything right. It’s frustrating beyond belief, and he’s glad Pete and his friends are distracting him from it, for the time being. Well, he would be glad, if they were here under different circumstances.

Pushing those thoughts away, Patrick’s eyes lazily shift over to Josh, sitting on his left. Somehow, he’s still watching the monitors as intently as he’d been when they started, his eyes constantly searching for anything abnormal. Patrick almost can’t believe that he actually _volunteers_ to do this.

Coming to terms with the fact that he is definitely not patient enough to keep staring at the screens, Patrick heaves a sigh and leans back against the couch. A long awaited yawn finally escaped from his mouth as he stretches and pulls his knees up by his chest.

“Tired?” Josh jokes, taking his attention away from the monitors with a grin tugging on his lips. Patrick turns his head to him, rolling his eyes with a grin. He doesn’t look any less enthusiastic as he did when they started the investigation. Patrick’s beginning to wonder if his face just makes him seem happy all the time. He feels like it’s more likely than him _actually_ being happy all the time.

“I’m just…” Patrick replies, hesitating a bit, “A little bored.” He tries to make the words sound as unoffensive as possible; he doesn’t really think Josh will care, but he can never be too safe. The worries in the back of his head are relieved when Josh laughs in response, putting his hand over his chest and giving Patrick an expression of fake hurt.

“Bored?” he repeats, eyebrows drawn together and his eyes narrowed to slits. “How _dare_ you insult us like this.” Josh is only able to keep up his glare for a second before a smile breaks out on his face and a snort escapes. Patrick can’t help but laugh along with him, muffling his giggles by burying his head in his knees.

“But really,” he says after their laughter dies down, resting his chin on the tops of his knees, “is it always like this?” Patrick puts a dulled emphasis on the word “this”, gesturing to the lack of anything happening on the monitors. Josh’s grin doesn’t dim as he turns back towards the screens, but he lets out a half-hearted sigh, slouching to rest his head on his left hand.

“Unfortunately, yeah,” he admits, tapping his knee with his other hand. Patrick’s eyes follow Josh’s, landing back on the video feed. He sees nothing has changed in the past couple minutes. “It’s not all action and stuff like people seem to think. Sometimes we don’t even find out something happened until we get home and rewatch everything. And,” Josh pauses, turning his head to look at Patrick, “sometimes nothing happens at all.” 

“Like…” Patrick starts, biting his lip to keep a laugh in, “when you go alien hunting?” At that, Josh’s mouth drops open, and he quickly makes a fist at Patrick.

“Rude!” he whines, trying to muster up his most hurtful look. “They’re out there, man. I believe.”

* * *

Pete groans for the sixth time in the past hour. He knows it’s been six times because Gerard’s been keeping a tally, and he’s made sure Pete’s very, very aware of it.

“Wow, six already?” Gerard calls from the other room. Pete has to stifle another groan as he walks out the door into the same room as irritating psychic.

“How can _nothing_ have happened by now?” he exasperates, running a hand through his hair as he switches off his voice recorder. “I don’t get it.”

“Who knows,” Gerard mumbles from down on the floor, not looking up from his phone. “Spirits are weird like that.”

“Yeah, but, just-” Pete struggles, trying to find the right words to fit his frustration. After a few seconds he gives up and lets out another groan.

“That’s seven.” Pete shoots a glare down at Gerard, his eyebrow twitching.

“You know, you really shouldn’t be on your phone,” he snaps, crossing his arms over his chest. “What if something shows up and you don’t notice it?” To his annoyance, Gerard just lets out a laugh.

“That’s not how it works,” he says, still tapping away at his phone, “and you know it.” Pete sighs, accepting defeat and sliding down next to him. He sneaks a look over to see who Gerard’s been texting, the name “Frank” showing at the top of the screen. He rolls his eyes. Of course.

“Tell your boyfriend I say hi,” Pete says, nudging Gerard with his shoulder. “Also ask him if there’s any way we can go _one_ investigation without him texting you?” Gerard snorts, finally looking away from his phone and over to Pete.

“You’re just jealous,” he teases, a smirk spreading across his face. “It’s not my problem Patrick can’t take a h-”

“Shhhshshh!” Pete hisses furiously, slapping a hand over Gerard’s mouth. “Those cameras have audio, you know!” Gerard lets out a muffled laugh from behind Pete’s hand.

“There’s no way it can hear us from all the way over there,” he says after Pete reluctantly takes his hand away, pointing a finger at the camera in the opposite corner of the room. Pete eyes it cautiously, hoping for his own sake that Gerard’s right.

“I’m nervous about Patrick,” Pete admits, keeping his voice lowered just in case. He turns the voice recorder around in his hands, a crease forming in his brow. “I never should have gotten him involved in this.”

“Uh, what?” Gerard mutters, squinting his eyes. “He would’ve gotten involved in this no matter what. That’s how spirits work.”

“But what if we like, I don’t know,” Pete rambles, throwing his hands up. “What if we triggered it or something?” He moves his eyes up from his hands over to Gerard, being met with a deadpan.

“Yeah, okay,” he says, rolling his eyes and going back to his phone. “I’ll pretend that makes sense.” Pete puts his head in his hand and sighs, rubbing his eyes. He looks over at the hallway that leads to the other room for a moment before turning back to Gerard.

“Do you have any idea how we can get rid of it though?” Gerard bites his lip, sending off a text before moving his attention to Pete.

“Well, we don’t really know what _it_ is,” he responds, his tone unsure. “I mean, hopefully something will happen tonight, and then we can figure out what we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah, hopefully,” Pete resigns, looking back down at his hands. “I’m just worried about P-”

“Stop telling secrets, guys!” Josh’s voice comes in through the walkie talkie, successfully getting a jump out of Pete and Gerard, before the two break out into a laugh.

“Fuck off, Josh,” Pete snorts into the device, flipping up a finger at the camera.

* * *

“So, Patrick…” Josh starts, peering over from the corner of the couch. It doesn’t take Patrick long to tear his eyes away from the screen—nothing interesting had happened for the past hour.

“Hm?” he mumbles, raising an eyebrow when he turns and sees the look on Josh’s face. “What does that look mean?” He’s not sure he wants to know the answer.

To Patrick’s horror, Josh’s eyes slowly slide back to the monitors, a sly, unnerving smile creeping across his face. “So… how about Pete?” Like a lightbulb, Patrick’s face lights up a horrible shade of red at the question. He’s not even really sure what that’s supposed to mean, but he doesn’t like the sound of it.

“P-Pete?” he stammers, trying and failing to feign aloofness.

“Pete.” Josh wiggles his eyebrows, obviously enjoying Patrick’s reaction. Patrick, fueled by his annoyance and exhaustion with the whole blushing thing, wipes the flustered look off his face and replaces it with a more disinterested one.

“Yeah, Pete,” he shrugs, not meeting Josh’s eyes and pretending his face isn’t as red as it is. “He’s alright.” His eyes are drawn back with a pout when Josh snorts, half-heartedly trying to hide his laughter behind his hand.

“And that’s all?” he pushes on, ignoring the glare Patrick’s giving him. Patrick opens his mouth, ready to deny everything and get Josh off his back, when his gaze flickers back to the screen. He sees Pete just sitting there, dully staring up at the ceiling, and he can’t repress a flutter moving through his stomach.

Sighing in exasperation, his turns back to Josh, wordlessly accepting defeat.

“Josh, I’m so fucked,” Patrick groans, bringing his hands up to bury his face in them.

“Yep,” Josh laughs apologetically, patting his shoulder. “You certainly are.” Patrick sinks down even lower into his hands.

“He’s just so… _ugh_!” He moves his face to rest his chin on his hands, looking miserably up at Josh. “I hate this so much.”

“You know, Patrick,” Josh begins, unable to keep the amusement out of his voice, “This could be solved if you just asked him out.” Patrick rolls his eyes, retorting with a monotone.

“Good idea! Wish I could’ve thought of that myself!” His expression softens when Josh summons up a hurtful expression, looking down at him with a pout and puppy eyes. “I can’t do that, Josh.”

“Why not?” Josh asks as he tilts his head, obviously not understanding Patrick’s plight.

“It’s just—ugh,” he groans, putting his face back into his hands. “It’s not that easy,” he complains, the sounds muffled through his hands.

“Sure it is!” Josh chirps, way too eager about this for Patrick’s liking.

“What-” Patrick begins, then picks his head back up to look at Josh. “What would I even say?”

“It’s simple,” Josh says matter-of-factly, putting his hands out as if the answer is laid out on them. “‘Do you want to go out with me’.” Patrick just shakes his head.

“He’s too good for me, Josh.” With a smile, Josh moves his hand to put in on Patrick’s shoulder.

“He’s not.”

“But he _is_ ,” Patrick argues, a bit offended. Josh just pulls back with an unimpressed frown, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Listen, Patrick,” he begins, seriousness seeping into his tone. “When I first met my girlfriend—” Patrick’s eyebrows widen a bit in surprised—he feels like he should have known by now that Josh had a girlfriend. Weird.

Josh doesn’t seem to notice his reaction, and continues on without missing a beat

“I thought there was no way in a million years someone as beautiful, and awesome, and talented, and smart as her was ever going to like me back. But, guess what?” Josh pauses, and it takes a second for Patrick to realize that Josh is actually waiting for him to guess what.

“Uh… what?”

“I got over my fears, asked her out, and now we’re together!” Somehow, Patrick doesn’t feel very comforted by the story. 

“But-”

“And,” Josh cuts him off before he can get anymore out, “It’s obvious Pete feels the same way about you. It’s really pretty gross, actually.” Patrick pretends not to hear the last part. Or any part of it, really.

“So… then why don’t I just wait for him to ask me out?” Patrick can’t hold back another blush at his words, and he looks down at his hands to block out whatever expression Josh is making.

“Why does it have to be so complicated?! Just trust me,” Josh stops and Patrick looks back up to see him placing a hand over his heart. “Just do it the next time you’re alone. You won’t regret it. Promise.” Patrick’s brain is yelling at him to make some sort of argument about how ridiculous that is, but instead he finds himself nodding.

“Okay,” he mumbles, then, more certainly, “I will. Next time we’re alone. I’m trusting you.” Josh’s face lights up with a toothy smile.

“Awesome!” he cheers, giving Patrick two thumbs up. “So, anyways, now that we’re done with that,” he starts up again, pulling out his phone. “Wanna see how pretty my girlfriend is?”

“Uh… sure?” Patrick blanches, not exactly sure how he’s supposed to react to that.

“Her name is Ashley,” Josh beams, holding up a picture of himself and a girl with blue hair.

“She is really pretty!” Patrick agrees, and then snaps his mouth shut, hoping that wasn’t some taboo thing to say about someone else’s girlfriend. He wouldn’t really know.

“I know! She’s so beautiful; I love her,” Josh rambles with a dumb grin, not at all put off by Patrick’s comment. “Look, this one is us from the first time we went alien hunting together. She loves aliens _almost_ as much as me…”

As Josh keeps talking about his girlfriend, Patrick tries to pay attention but ends up drifting back to the monitors. Right away, he notices that Pete and Gerard have finally moved—they’re standing up in the middle of the room now. Even Patrick can tell that something must have happened.

“Hey, Josh,” Patrick speaks up, interrupting Josh from whatever he’d been saying about Ashley. “I think something happened.”

“Oh…?” Josh mumbles, snapping out of his rant and turning to the screens. It seems like Pete is trying to talk to them through the walkie talkie, but no sound is coming through on their own walkie talkie. Seeing this, Josh picks up the silent walkie talkie off of the table. Patrick leans over and can see that it’s not out of battery or anything that would cause it to stop working.

“I’m gonna go upstairs real quick and see what’s happening,” Josh says, setting the walkie talkie back down and standing up, stretching a bit before turning towards the door. “Be back in a sec,” he calls over his shoulder before he’s gone and Patrick is alone.

Instinctively, Patrick looks behind himself, just in case. He doesn’t like the idea of being left by himself.

* * * 

“Hey, Pete,” Gerard says after almost fifteen aching minutes of silence. “I feel something.”

“I swear to god if you’re ‘just kidding’ again, you’re getting thrown out the window,” Pete deadpans, crossing his arms over his chest as he turns his head to wait for Gerard to start laughing about it. But, he doesn’t.

“I’m being serious,” he states, eyebrows pulling together. Pete’s demeanor instantly changes, and he picks up his voice recorder, ready to start asking questions again. He jumps up from the floor, Gerard following his lead more slowly.

“Alright,” he starts, walking over to the center of the room. “I’m gonna walkie talkie Josh and tell him that you feel something.” Taking the device out of his pocket, Pete sends a message through it downstairs. He frowns when a few seconds pass with no answer. “Alright, well fuck you too then, Josh,” he grumbles before putting the walkie talkie back and turning to Gerard.

“So, how are you feeling?” Gerard, shoving his hands into his pockets, looks around uneasily before answering.

“It’s… really… dense?” he mumbles, struggling to find the right way to say it. “It’s kinda, um, s-” Before he can finish the word, Gerard falls forward a bit, barely catching himself from spilling onto the ground. 

“Gerard!” Pete gasps, shoving his voice recorder into his pocket to be able to hold onto Gerard. “What’s wrong?!”

“I-It’s fine,” Gerard groans, then sinks down even lower, his face going white. “I just might pass out.”

“What happened?!” Pete turns to the sound of Josh’s voice, seeing him rushing over from the opened front door.

“Did you not hear me on the walkie talkie?” Pete asks as Josh comes to support Gerard’s other side, helping Pete lower him onto the floor.

“No; I came up because we saw you were trying to talk to us,” he answers, concern etched deeply into his face.

“Shit…” Pete curses under his breath. “Gerard said he felt something, and then he just started to pass out.”

“Wait,” Gerard speaks up from in between the two of them, some color coming back to his face. “It—It left.”

“But are you okay?” Josh presses, keeping him from trying to stand up. Gerard just grumbles and pushes his hands away.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he assures, running a hand through his hair. “I just—I’ve never felt such an angry presence before.” Pete and Josh share a look after hearing his words. That’s definitely not good.

“But, wait…” Pete starts, looking around suddenly. “If it left, then… where did it go?”

A sudden realization seems to hit the three of them at the same moment. They haven’t even had enough time to stand up when they hear a terrified, blood-curdling scream scratch its way up through the floor and into their ears. 

Unmistakably, it’s coming from Patrick Stump.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IM so sorry ive been gone for so long i had horrible writers block (and college and work)  
> also im so sorry this was a filler chapter i promise the next one will be more exciting and will have a Lotta peterick  
> be excited  
> ALSO if u leave me nice comments it will fuel me so pls


	8. 008

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick's okay, at least as okay as he usually is.

Pete’s never run faster in his entire life. He’s the first to Patrick’s apartment, practically crashing into the door as he twists it open. Gerard and Josh flood into the room right after him.

“Patrick!” he shouts as he rushes in, frantically whipping his head around to search for his missing friend. “Where is he?!”

“Pete,” Gerard says from behind, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll find him. Just calm down.” Pete doesn’t answer him, instead he just shrugs Gerard off and goes further into the room to see if Patrick is hidden around the furniture.

He can’t believe he let Patrick get hurt _again_. The guilt is overflowing his mind, his anxiety stabbing him deeper and deeper. He’d fucked up so badly this time. Patrick’s probably dead, or horribly hurt, and it was all his fault—

“I found him!” Josh’s voice calls out from across the room, over at the door to the music room. The air rushes out of Pete’s lungs in relief, and his legs automatically sprint over Josh. His eyes are immediately drawn to the unconscious figure of Patrick, slumped against the far wall.

“Patrick!” he repeats, sliding down next to him and picking up his hand. He’s definitely alive, Pete makes sure right away—his breaths are coming out in little puffs, it can almost be like he’s only sleeping.

“What could have happened to him?” Josh’s concerned voice comes from behind him as he moves to kneel down beside Pete.

“We didn’t have enough cameras to leave any down here,” Pete says quietly, realizing they’ll have no way to figure out what happened to Patrick. But, he thinks while heaving a sigh, at least they know where he’s at, and he’s okay.

“I’m so sorry, Pete,” Josh blurts out from next to him. Before Pete can even react, Josh has his face buried in his hands.

“Wait, what?” Pete doubletakes, squinting his eyes in confusion. “Josh, this isn’t your fault.” 

“I shouldn’t have left him down here by himself,” he sniffles through his hands, shaking his head as he speaks. Pete just rolls his eyes and gives him a pat on the shoulder.

“Dude, you couldn’t have known this was gonna happen. I would have done the same thing.” Apparently, this is comforting enough to get Josh to lift his head back up and wipe his nose. Pete has to keep himself from rolling his eyes again. He can be so dramatic.

“I guess,” he mumbles, and Pete can be satisfied with that.

“Okay, good then,” he grins, and then turns back to Patrick, softening his expression. “Will you help me get him onto the couch?”

Very awkwardly, but still somehow successfully, the pair manage to carry Patrick over to the couch without causing severe damage. Gerard is already planted in the living room chair, to Pete’s annoyance, but he isn’t going to start a fight right now. He _supposes_ he can understand that Gerard doesn’t want to go in the music room, but Patrick is kind of more important. Instead, he just sits himself down on the floor, right next to Patrick. Josh follows his lead, plopping himself down on the ground against the coffee table, opposite of Gerard.

“So, Gerard,” Pete starts up after they’re all sitting down, turning to face him. He’s tapping his fingers against the arm of the chair, looking at Patrick with an uneasy expression.

“Hm?” he replies, wiping the look off of his face as his eyes shift to Pete.

“Do you have any idea what happened?” Gerard shrugs, a deep frown tugging on his mouth. He shoots a quick glance over to the music room.

“It’s… bad. Pretty bad.” Pete sighs. He already knows that, but it sounds even worse hearing it from someone else. “We’re gonna need to get rid of this thing, fast. Or it’s going to be a lot worse.” Pete’s stomach sinks as he looks back at Patrick. He knows Gerard means it’s going to be a lot worse for him, not them.

“But how do we get rid of it?” Josh pipes up from the other side of the coffee table. “Can we just do an exorcism or something on the room?” Gerard sighs, rubbing his eyes.

“No, that’s not how it works. I mean, I’m not an expert or anything, and we don’t even know what we’re dealing with besides some really pissed off spirit, but I might have an idea of what we’re going to have to do to get rid of it. But, you’re not going to like it.” Pete and Josh share a look of nervousness before turning back to him and prompting him to go on.

Gerard sighs again, and opens his mouth to continue, when he’s interrupted by a strangled gasp coming from Patrick.

“Patrick!” Pete exclaims, immediately grabbing onto his arm, impulsively shaking him a bit. “Are you okay?!”

“P-Pete?” Patrick breathes, his eyes flying wide open. “Wh-what?” Patrick’s mind is going through a serious case of deja vu, a worryingly familiar panic sending his thoughts into a frenzy. What the hell had happened? He can’t think of the last thing he remembers happening, but he also can’t really remember anything at the moment, with Pete latched onto his arm and his face really, really close to his own.

“Are you hurt at all?” Pete asks him, obviously trying not to make it sound as grave as it is. Patrick manages to at least comprehend him, but he doesn’t know how to answer. He doesn’t _think_ he’s hurt, but he also has no idea of what’s going on.

Tentatively, he starts pushing himself up into a sitting position. Nothing aches as he moves, so he’s assuming he must be alright. It only takes him another moment to realize he’s on top of his couch, and, as he looks around, Gerard and Josh are also in the room, staring at him with equally concerned expressions. Great.

Although he doesn’t really need it, Pete helps him sit up, then gets up off the floor to sit next to him on the couch. Patrick pretends not to notice how close he is, or how he still has a hand on his back. He’s pretty sure he’s not blushing, which he would be celebrating if three people in the room weren’t looking at him like he’d just come back from the dead.

“Uh, did I trip again or something?” Patrick asks, raising an eyebrow and praying it was only that bad.

“Do you not remember?” Pete replies, and his tone kills Patrick’s wishful thinking. “We heard you scream from upstairs.” That sends a jolt of shock through Patrick. He screamed? He feels like he definitely should remember that happening.

“I just remember Josh going upstairs, and—Oh.” Patrick’s stomach suddenly drops as a recollection comes back to him. The dream he’d had earlier, which he’d pushed to the back of his mind and mostly forgotten about, involuntarily replays in his head just as vividly as it had been when he’d dreamt it. He knows it was only a dream, but… he has a subconscious feeling that was no longer true.

Patrick feels his eyes start to brim with tears. He mentally yells at himself—this is really unnecessary. He tries to make it stop and magically will his tears to evaporate before anyone can notice, but it’s too late. Pete’s already seen them, and he immediately rushes to wrap his arms around Patrick and pulls him into his chest.

“Oh my god, I’m fine,” Patrick lies, his voice muffled by Pete’s shirt as he’s struggling to keep his voice level.

“Yeah, okay,” Pete shushes him, hugging him even tighter. To Patrick’s utter humiliation, he starts to practically sob into Pete, but he can’t stop himself. He’s just so _scared_. He’s terrified. He at least tries to cry quietly, to make himself seem a little less pitiful.

After another minute, tops, Patrick’s good enough that he can finally talk without choking up. Trying to pick up what’s left of his self-imposed dignity, he pulls away from Pete (a bit regretfully) and wipes at his face with his sleeve.

“Okay. Sorry,” he apologizes, looking down at his hands.

“You don’t need to say sorry, Patrick,” Josh chides, a pout pulling on his lip. “We’re all scared.”

“And, I mean,” Gerard speaks up from over on the chair, “This thing is going after _you_ , so we can’t really blame y-”

“Okay, not helpful,” Pete cuts him off, sending him a glare as Patrick accidentally lets a whimper escape. “Alright, let’s just—let’s call it a night.” Patrick looks over to the clock on the wall. It reads quarter til midnight. He must not have been sleeping—or knocked out, he supposes—for very long.

“We should take the cameras and put them back down here,” Pete says in a way that implies “we” doesn’t actually mean him. Gerard grumbles something unintelligible while Josh jumps up with a cheerful “okay!”, already tugging Gerard out of the chair and out the door.

“So,” Pete starts at soon as Josh and Gerard are gone, turning his body towards Patrick and resting his arm up on the back of the couch. “Are you gonna tell me what happened?” Patrick looks down and frowns. He doesn’t really want to talk about it, but he also doesn’t want to make it seem as if he’s trying to hide something. Taking a deep breath, he gives a little shrug before opening his mouth to answer.

“It’s not really that I remembered it,” he admits, watching Pete tilt his head a little bit, confused. “I just—I remembered a dream I had earlier.” He pauses to see if Pete’s going to make a comment, but he just nods for Patrick to go on.

“In my dream, I was upstairs and all of a sudden I couldn’t move. And then, the next thing I know, I couldn’t breathe. It was like someone was choking me. And, I-I just have a feeling that’s what happened. I don’t know.” Patrick’s suddenly aware of how fast his heart is beating, just from thinking about it. He’s glad he doesn’t actually remember it, he probably would’ve had a heart attack. “It just was… really awful,” he sighs, bringing his head down to bury his face in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Pete says quietly, and Patrick hears him move closer. His heart stops when Pete wraps his arms around him again, pulling him in tightly to his chest.

“Pete,” Patrick mumbles, letting out an exhale when Pete rests his chin on the top of his head. “I… I think I maybe probably shouldn’t stay here.”

“You really think I’m going to let you stay in this place?” Pete scoffs, and Patrick can hear the pout and drawn eyebrows in his voice. “Come stay at my apartment.”

This time, Patrick’s blush finally breaks out, dusting his face with a dark pink. “R-Really?!” he bursts out, pulling away from Pete in shock. 

“I-I mean, if you want to…?” Pete stammers, his own blush spreading across his cheeks, apparently misreading Patrick’s reaction.

“Y-Yeah! I mean,” Patrick catches himself, feeling his face turn an even deeper red. “Yeah. That’s fine.” Pete’s expression relaxes as he lets out a laugh.

“Okay, cool,” he grins, probably purposely making Patrick’s heart swell. Suddenly, Patrick’s brain reminds him of how he’d told Josh that he would ask Pete out on a date the next time they were alone. He curses himself for remembering; now that he’s thought of it, it’s probably going to find it’s way out of his mouth, whether for better or worse.

He thinks about it; _technically_ this was kind of going to be a date. They were going somewhere. Together. That’s that definition of a date, Patrick’s pretty sure. But, no, he tells himself, mentally shaking his head. Even he has _some_ standards, and that definitely does not meet his.

His mind is reeling; would it be weird to ask him now? He’s pretty sure it’ll be weird no matter when he does it—he should just hurry up and get it over with.

“‘Trick?” Pete breaks in, derailing Patrick’s train of thought. “What are you staring at?”

“Huh?” Patrick mumbles, coming back down to earth. He bites his lip as his eyes focus back on Pete’s dumb face. He forces himself to keep from looking down at his hands. “Oh, um. It’s just that, I need to ask you someth-”

Before Patrick can even ask the question about his question, the front door swings open, a peppy Josh and significantly less excited Gerard coming in with cameras in their arms.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” Gerard teases, Josh hiding a snicker behind his hand. Pete just brushes it off, rolling his eyes and telling them to hurry up and set up the cameras.

“Is it cool if we just leave all of our stuff set up here?” Pete asks as he turns back to Patrick. “I think all of us just want to get out of here.” Patrick nods earnestly, telling him if they can get out faster, then it’s more than fine. A few moments later, he excuses himself to go pack his things to take to Pete’s.

He leaves the door open once he gets to his room, too paranoid to close it and isolate himself from the others again. He takes a bag out from his closet and looks around, trying to figure out what he needs. Clothes, for sure. He goes over to his dresser and rifles through the middle drawer for a certain shirt, his stomach starting to turn with the realization that he was going over to Pete’s.

As in, they were going to be alone. Very alone. With no one to interrupt him. In a way, he was grateful for it, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to think about all the stupid things he was going to say when there was no one to stop him. As he shoves a handful of clothes into his bag, a sudden flash of panic hits him. What was he thinking? He can’t go to Pete’s apartment! He’ll probably say something embarrassing, and then Pete will never talk to him again. He doesn’t trust himself not to horribly mess it up and leave him unable to ever make a meaningful connection with someone ever again.

Patrick looks over to the window. It’s only a four story drop; maybe he can climb down it or make a rope out of his bedsheets or something. Then he catches himself, lightly slapping his cheeks. Pete hasn’t seemed to mind any of the stupid things he’s done yet so, he at least has that going for him. He can do this. Probably.

“Hey, are you almost ready?” Pete’s voice comes from the door, breaking Patrick out of his internal monologue. He turns to the door with a start, as if Pete could somehow figure out what he’d just been thinking.

“Oh! Yeah, almost,” he says, inwardly cringing at his tone as he turns back to finish stuffing his bag and zipping it closed.

“Sweet,” Pete says, leaning against the door with a smile on his face. “I’m ready to go when you are.” Patrick looks around his room once more, double checking to make sure he had everything he needs. Once he’s satisfied enough, he turns back towards Pete.

“Okay, I’ve got everything. Hopefully,” he grins, switching off the light and walking out the door with him. He doesn’t see anyone else in the living room. “Did Gerard and Josh leave?”

“Mhm,” Pete hums, taking his keys out of his pocket and swinging them around his finger. “We all drove ourselves today.” Patrick just nods, keeping himself from looking into the music room as they walk past. “Josh switched out all of the memory cards from the cameras,” Pete says as they get to the door, and Patrick twists the knob open. “He’s going to look at them tomorrow and see if we missed anyth-”

Pete’s cut off by a sound coming from behind the two of them. The sound is unmistakeable to Patrick—it’s a guitar string being plucked. Patrick feels the blood drain from his face and the air leave his lungs. He’s frozen; he can’t turn around. He doesn’t want to.

But then Pete starts to turn around, his eyes wide, but not afraid.

“I’m going to see what it is,” Pete says, not noticing how Patrick’s face becomes even more horrified.

“Pete,” Patrick croaks, barely able to get his voice to work. “Don’t.” Pete starts to step away from him.

“Just let me take a look. It’ll only take a second.” Patrick, as terrified as he is, can’t believe how stupid Pete is. Patrick knows that his entire life sort of revolves around being a Ghostbuster, but whatever is haunting Patrick obviously isn’t something you “take a look” at. He also can’t let Pete get hurt; it’s bad enough that he’s already been terrorized.

In a short burst of anger, Patrick grabs onto Pete’s hand before he can walk away, holding on tightly. His face softens once Pete looks back at him with his wide eyes.

“Pete,” he pleads, lightly tugging on his arm. “Don’t. Please.” Pete looks at him a moment longer, then down at their hands, then back up at Patrick before he seems to snap out of something, shaking his head. 

“Yeah, of course. Sorry,” he apologizes, intertwining their fingers and letting himself be led out of the apartment. “Let’s get out of here.” Patrick flashes him a shaky smile and doesn’t waste anytime in getting out, keeping their hands held together the whole way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> holy shit! two chapters in two days! don't get used to it  
> (the next ones gonna have a lotta peterick so prepare urselves)  
> also.. comment ... if ur.. Cool enough (please)


	9. 009

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Patrick gets some?

Pete’s apartment is nicer than Patrick’s. _A lot_ nicer. Compared to his apartment, with the water stains, holes in the wall, and demonic haunting, Pete’s apartment might as well be heaven. After taking a _safe_ elevator up to the fifth floor, Pete leads Patrick through a well-lit hallway up to his door. Patrick can already feel the embarrassment building inside himself; Pete’s probably only bringing him here because he feels so bad that Patrick’s poor and can’t afford anything better. Well, and that he has a ghost trying to murder him.

Pete puts his key in the lock and twists it without a problem, swinging the door open smoothly. 

“Welcome to my place!” he grins, sticking out an arm into his apartment. He holds the door open for Patrick as he steps inside, his eyes soaking up everything. He finds himself in what must be Pete’s living room, with a matching couch and arm chair clustered around a big TV. It’s been left turned on, even though no one else is in the room. He turns to look at everything as he steps further into the apartment. There’s some posters on the walls, and Patrick’s pretty sure he sees a drumstick poking out of a hole on the other side of the room.

“Dammit, Andy,” Pete groans from behind Patrick, going over to shut the TV off. “He _always_ leaves the fucking TV on his weird vegan channel.” Patrick’s face suddenly crumples in confusion. Andy? Patrick had never heard Pete mention him before.

Before he can ask him, Patrick’s cut off by a cough from the other side of the room. Patrick, not realizing somebody else had been in the apartment, jumps at the sound and turns his head with wide eyes to find the source of the cough standing at the end of a hallway.

He’s probably one of the most terrifying people Patrick has ever seen. He’s only a couple inches taller than Patrick, but he looks like he could probably rip Patrick apart with just one hand. Accentuating his stature, he also is covered head to toe in tattoos and has an angry expression set into his face. Patrick can’t figure out if he actually is angry, or if it’s just his mustache.

He’s about to make a run for it while he still can when Pete comes up behind him and puts a hand on his shoulder, grinning at Andy. Patrick’s heart barely even flutters. He’s kind of proud of himself.

“Patrick,” Pete starts, gesturing over to the man, “this is my roommate, Andy.” Pete’s introduction doesn’t really help with Patrick’s intimidation, but he still manages to lift up his hand and give a little wave.

“Nice to meet you,” he says awkwardly, trying to read the expression on Andy’s face. It’s hard to do with the mustache. Andy just gives him a nod before turning back to Pete, which he can deal with. Patrick watches him raise an eyebrow, and somehow Pete knows what he means.

“Some shit happened,” Pete explains, taking his hand away from Patrick to shrug. Patrick pretends not to mind that, and also that Pete referred to his traumatizing experience as “some shit”. “I’ll tell you about it later.” Andy just nods again, and Patrick thinks the conversation must be done, but then he raises his other eyebrow.

Once again, Pete somehow knows exactly what he means. Patrick wonders if Andy is some sort of telepath. At this point, he wouldn’t even be surprised. Patrick looks over at Pete to see a tiny blush on his face, his arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

“That’s none of your business!” he huffs indignantly, causing Andy to roll his eyes and retreat back into the hallway.

“Whatever you say,” he calls out as he walks away, and Patrick has to stop for a moment to register the soft, high pitched voice that comes out. He’s trying to comprehend everything when Pete lets out a half-hearted curse under his breath and turns back to Patrick.

“Don’t mind him,” he says with a deadpan, regaining his composure. “He’s just… really weird sometimes.” Patrick doesn’t really know if it’s okay for him to agree, but he just nods his head anyways.

“How did you… understand what he was saying?” Patrick asks, his face crumpled in confusion. “Or, wasn’t saying, I guess.” Pete face goes blank for a moment, as if he doesn’t understand the question, and then breaks out into a grin.

“I don’t even notice it anymore,” he laughs, which doesn’t really answer Patrick’s question. “After you know him for a while you just pick up on it, I guess.”

“Oh,” Patrick mumbles, a bit disappointed. “I thought he must’ve been a telepath, or something.” It wasn’t even really funny, but it gets a snort out of a Pete, which involuntarily makes a smile pop up on Patrick’s face. He can’t help it.

“Nope, definitely not him,” Pete grins, and lifts his hand up to his chin as another thought seemed to enter his head. “I wonder about Gerard sometimes though…” Patrick laughs at that; now that he thinks about it, he could definitely see it being real. Pete looks like he’s about to add on something else, but then his expression suddenly changes and he switches the topic.

“Oh! Sorry, I forgot you still had that,” he says, gesturing to the bag hanging off of Patrick’s shoulder. “If you wanna put it in my room, it’s at the end of the hallway.” He turns around to point over to the opposite side of the living room where Andy had disappeared to. “I’m gonna see if we have any food. I don’t know about you, but after doing nothing for hours, I’m kind of starving.” At the mention of food, Patrick suddenly becomes aware of just how hungry he is. He can’t even remember the last time he ate.

“Yeah, that’d be great,” he smiles, receiving a smile in return from Pete. “Just please don’t make it any weird vegan stuff.”

“You got it,” Pete snorts, giving him one last smile before walking off through the archway that leads to the kitchen. Stilling his heart, which he hadn’t realized was beating so fast, Patrick makes his way over to and down the short hallway, pushing open the door at the end.

Patrick’s not really sure what he expected Pete’s room to look like, but it isn’t at all surprising. It’s kind of messy, with random clothes and books strewn around and piles of papers covering a desk to the left of the door. On the far side of the room is his unmade bed, a nightstand with a lamp, and a window, frosted over from the chill outside.

Patrick looks around more as he steps into the room, looking at all of the posters taped up on the walls. Some are for obviously for bands, others for things that Patrick can’t quite figure out. 

He sets his bag down next to Pete’s bed and looks back over to the door, judging whether or not he has more time to look around before Pete comes back. It’s not snooping, he tells himself. He just wants to take a look.

Keeping an eye on the door, he wanders over to a bookshelf on the right side of the room. It’s completely stuffed full of books and even more binders. They’ve all obviously been shoved in wherever he could fit them—some are even upside down. 

As Patrick’s scanning the titles and trying to find at least one book he’s heard of, his eyes get distracted by something to the left of the bookcase. Patrick can’t believe he hadn’t seen it sooner; it had partially been blocked from his view, but he still criticizes himself for it.

Patrick’s standing in awe of a guitar sitting in the corner, leaning against the wall. He hesitantly picks it up—it’s only a generic acoustic guitar, but he feels like it’s the first time he’s ever held one. He looks back over his shoulder to the door again. He’s pretty sure Pete won’t mind if he just plays a couple of chords on it

Sitting down on the middle of the floor, Patrick gingerly sets the guitar in his lap. His fingers hover over the fretboard; he hasn’t played his own guitar in what feels like forever. He can feel anxiety swirling in his stomach. What if the ghost’s effect on him is permanent and he’ll never be able to play again? Or, maybe it hadn’t even been the ghost all along, and he had just lost his talent. He has no idea what he’ll do if either of those are the case.

Taking a deep breath, Patrick moves his fingers into an A chord. He expects the worst as he strums down, but it comes out as clear as ever. His excitement picking up, he moves his fingers to C#, then D, and then back to A. The chord progression turns into an improvised melody—one that actually sounds good.

A smile spreads across his face as he feels the familiar grooves of the strings press into his fingers, rubbing against his callouses. At some point, he’s not sure when, he closes his eyes, causing him not to notice when Pete appears in the doorway, two plates of pizza in his hands.

“Patrick…” Pete breathes, effectively breaking Patrick out of his trance with a start. “I had no idea you were so good.” Patrick’s head whips around as his melody is cut off by his hands jerkily silencing the strings, as if he’d been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

“Sorry!” he immediately apologizes, flustered. “I-I just wanted to see if I could still play—I didn’t m-”

“Patrick,” Pete interrupts, laughing softly as he sits down next to Patrick on the floor, setting the plates down with him. “I don’t care. That was incredible.”

Patrick stares at him blankly for a moment before he dips his head down as a blush spreads across his face, trying to keep his smile from showing.

“Thank you,” he gushes, running his thumb along the top E string. “I haven’t been able to play anything right since I moved into the apartment.” He lifts his head up to see Pete nodding in understandment, that familiar pout back on his face. “I didn’t know you played,” he adds, glancing back down to the guitar in his lap.

“Hm?” Pete mumbles, confusion clouding his face for a second before he seems to comprehend Patrick’s comment. “Oh! Oh, no,” he laughs, shaking his head. “I always wanted to learn, but I never had time for it. I’ve had that thing for years.” Patrick’s shoulders droop a bit, but he tries not to make himself look too disappointed.

“That sucks,” he remarks, clutching the guitar close to himself. He almost feels sorry for it; it probably hasn’t been played in a long, long time. “But, I mean, I guess you’ve had your hands full with Ghostbusting.” Pete rolls his eyes and laughs, scoffing at the term.

“Less Ghostbusting and more ghost finding,” he corrects, trying to hold back the smile tugging at his lips. “But, yeah, it kinda uses up all of your free time.” Patrick just hums in agreement, his eyes finding their way down to the plates of pizza as his stomach grumbles, and he suddenly is reminded of how hungry he is.

Pete catches on and slides a plate over to Patrick with a grin. “It’s all I could find that wasn’t any of Andy’s weird shit. I promise it’s only two days old, tops.”

“Hmm,” Patrick hums as he sets the guitar down carefully and picks up the plate, inspecting the slice of pizza and looking back up at Pete. “If I get food poisoning, I’m never going to let you forget it.” Pete bites his lip as he laughs, picking up his own plate and taking a bite.

“At least I’ll go down with you,” he jokes, the words coming out muffled. Patrick looks down at the pizza one more time before shrugging and deciding that, at this point, food poisoning is the least of his problems. 

“It might be because I haven’t eaten in like two days,” he begins, swallowing his first bite. “But, this doesn’t actually taste that bad.”

“Now you’re just being dramatic,” Pete chides, already halfway done with his slice. “It’s _good_.” Patrick just hums some sort of noncommittal agreement in response and takes another bite. “So,” Pete begins before any sort of silence can fall between the two of them. “How long have you been playing guitar?” Patrick just shrugs as he finishes chewing, opening his mouth to answer after he swallows.

“As long as I can remember,” he says, looking down at the crumbs on his plate before back up at Pete. “My dad taught me.” Pete nods as he finishes off his crust and sets his plate back down on the floor.

“I figured,” he confesses, smiling softly. “So, you just made up that up?”

“Uh, yeah,” Patrick blushes, brushing off Pete’s implied compliment. He just chalks it up to him not really knowing anything about music. “It’s not really that hard.” Pete just rolls his eyes.

“Whatever you say,” he drawls, ignoring Patrick’s muttered comment on how it really wasn’t hard at all. “You must really love it to have gotten so good.” Patrick blinks, not expecting the topic to take this turn. Trying to pull together the words that he wants, Patrick sets his plate down on the floor next to Pete’s, a half-eaten crust left on it.

“Well, I mean, yeah,” he stumbles, looking down at his hands and twiddling his thumbs. “It’s really all I’ve got going for me.” He inwardly cringes; he didn’t mean to let something so insecure-sounding slip out of his mouth. The last thing he wants out of Pete is pity. Even more pity, that is.

“What’s that mean?” Pete pushes, keeping his tone soft, but obviously ready to challenge him. Patrick sighs, rubbing an eye with the heel of his hand. Someday, he’ll figure out how to say anything personal without sounding sorry for himself.

“It’s nothing,” he insists, trying to ignore Pete’s persistent gaze. “I just said that.”

“Don’t lie,” Pete huffs, and Patrick watches passively as he moves the slightest bit closer to himself. Pete’s hand reaches out into the empty space in between the two of them, taking hold of Patrick’s hand. Patrick lets him, reciprocating as Pete intertwines his fingers. He feels his heart rate start to pick up, but he still doesn’t say anything.

“Look,” Pete begins, looking down at both of their hands. “I know how annoying it is to have people just shower you in compliments that don’t mean anything. And I’m not trying to do that. But, you have a lot more going for you than just being able to make pretty sounds.” Patrick meets his eyes and bites his lip, trying to hold back a smile. He feels Pete squeeze his hand as he smiles back.

“It’s just that it’s the only way I know how to express myself the way I want to,” Patrick admits, looking off to the side over to the window and the city lights peeking in through it. “I’m not exactly the best with words and… talking to people, if you get what I mean.”

“That’s fine,” Pete reckons, running his thumb over the back of Patrick’s hand. “I feel like you can say more with music.” Patrick’s head turns back to look at him, his eyes widening the slightest.

“You think so?” Patrick questions quietly, his eyes boring into Pete’s. Pete just nods enthusiastically, smiling at Patrick’s reaction. “I hope so,” he laughs a few moments later, breaking out of his serious expression.

“Well, I’m usually right,” Pete chimes in, laughing along with him. Patrick raises an eyebrow sarcastically, but doesn’t argue with him. Instead, he looks back down at their hands, a sudden sense of happiness spreading through him.

“Alright, that’s more than enough about me,” he starts, continuing before Pete has any time to object. “What about you?”

“Hm?” Pete questions, tilting his head to the side. “What about me?” Patrick gives himself a moment just to enjoy his confused before he answers.

“Why do you like ghosts so much?” he elaborates, watching as Pete lets out a soft laugh at his question. 

“I don’t know, it’s just cool,” he answers, still laughing softly to himself before looking back up at Patrick. “I don’t really have any deep reason for it. Sorry.” Patrick smiles back at him, holding back an eye roll.

“Boring,” Patrick sighs dramatically, giving him a deadpan. “I need more than that.”

“The hell do you want me to say?” Pete snorts, gesturing with his free hand. “‘My parents were killed by ghosts so now I go around seeking revenge?’” 

“I feel like you could do better,” Patrick complains, fighting back a laugh at the exasperation on Pete’s face.

“Oh! I know,” Pete bursts out after a few moments of frustration. “So,” he begins. leaning in towards Patrick, getting Patrick to raise an eyebrow and wait patiently for him to go on. “There was this guy I knew. I hadn’t known him for very long, but I couldn’t lie—I was completely infatuated with him.” At his words, Patrick feels his stomach drop, a hot blush springing onto his face. A smirk grows across Pete’s face as he continues speaking.

“And, he, for whatever fucking reason, had this ghost trying to _kill_ him. So, obviously, I had to do something about it,” he says lowly, leaning in even closer to Patrick. Patrick swallows hard, his mind racing at what he could sense was about to happen.

“And?” he chokes out, trying to sound at least half as together as Pete does. “What did you do?”

“Not enough,” he recalls, his eyes drifting to the scratch marks on Patrick’s neck. “He still got hurt.” Patrick’s breathing stops as Pete brings his other hand up to ghost over the scratches, his eyebrows pulling together. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Patrick practically whispers as Pete’s eyes come back up to meet his own, only a breath of air between their faces. “I would probably be dead if you hadn’t been here.” Pete lets out a soft laugh, his breath ghosting over Patrick’s lips.

“You’re probably right.” That’s the last thing he says before he leans forward the last two inches, pressing his lips softly against Patrick’s. 

Patrick feels his heart soar. Sparks shock him, and his thoughts erupt into a flurry. He closes his eyes and leans into the kiss, tilting his head and trying not to smile so he won’t mess it up.

It feels like it’s only been a sweet second, before Pete pulls away, smiling brighter than Patrick’s ever seen. Patrick beams back at him, not missing the bright blush on Pete’s face. 

“Do you wanna go on a date with me?” Patrick suddenly finds himself blurting out, his mind not working right from being kissed.

“Do I want to what?” Pete repeats, a little laugh leaving his mouth as he tilts his head. “I mean, you don’t really have to ask.” An incomprehensible stutter comes out of Patrick before he buries his face in his hands out of complete embarrassment.

“Please do me a favor and pretend I didn’t say that,” he pleads, the sounds coming out muffled. Pete just laughs as Patrick picks his head back up and rests his chin on his arms, sticking out his bottom lip into a pout. “I told Josh I would… ask you out… the next time we were alone together. But I didn’t mean to do it _right fucking now_.” He ignores Pete as he practically doubles over in laughter, trying to fight the embarrassed flush rising up to his cheeks.

“How about we go on one when all of this shit is over?” Pete offers, getting over his laughing fit enough to speak. “And we can get something that isn’t questionably leftover pizza.” Patrick lifts his head up to look up at Pete’s grinning face.

“Promise?” Patrick asks him, just to be sure.

“Promise.” Patrick smiles at him contently, about to work up the courage to ask him if he maybe wants to kiss again, when a yawn escapes from his mouth. Suddenly, he’s reminded of how late at night it is and how exhausting today was. He brings a hand up to cover his mouth, ignoring the smirk he can see pulling at the corners of Pete’s mouth.

“Can we sleep now?” Patrick asks, his eyes becoming heavier just at the mention of sleep. Not even waiting for Pete to answer, he looks around the room and opens his mouth. “Where should I sleep?”

“Well,” Pete starts, drawing out the word as Patrick looks at him with an eyebrow raised. “You _could_ sleep on the couch… but,” he pauses for a moment, letting Patrick’s face crumple in confusion. “You could also… not.”

“So… you want me to sleep on the floor?” Patrick assumes, an offended undertone tinging his voice.

“No!” Pete bursts out in a laugh, shaking his head. “I meant… just… come on.” Ignoring Patrick’s confused protests, Pete untwines their fingers and picks up both of his hands, getting up to his feet and pulling Patrick along with him. Suddenly realizing what was happening, Patrick felt another blush fighting it’s way on to his face.

With a smirk still on his face, Pete pushes Patrick towards the bed and goes to turn the light off. Clumsily, Patrick just sits down, not really sure what he’s supposed to do. After the light’s turned off and the room is dark, except for the dim light coming in through the window, Pete makes his way over to the bed, climbing in over Patrick onto the side against the wall. With a sigh, he pulls Patrick down with him, and Patrick lets him. 

His heart swells as Pete wraps his arms around him and pulls him into his chest. It’s different than the other times; this time it’s not because he’s terrified out of his mind, but it’s just because. It makes him happy beyond belief, and he smiles into Pete’s shirt, feeling Pete’s heart beat against his cheek.

“Goodnight, Pete,” he mumbles, already feeling himself start to drift off to sleep.

“‘Night, Patrick,” Pete chuckles back into his hair. “Sleep tight.” Patrick just hums an answer, his consciousness becoming more and more fuzzy, and before he knows it, he’s slipped into a peaceful sleep.

* * *

When he wakes up, Patrick’s mind is blurry and he has a vague feeling of falling asleep very, very happy. 

It takes him a moment to realize he’s been woken up by a ringing—it’s a cell phone going off. Letting out a small groan, he cracks open his eyes, trying to figure out where it’s coming from. He’s met with a room that definitely is not his, and, as he tries to sit up, he realizes there’s something heavy keeping him from doing so. 

His heart rate speeding up, he whips around to find the sleeping face of Pete buried in the pillow next to him, his arm wrapped around Patrick’s torso. Patrick’s breath is cut short for a moment before the events of last night come rushing back to him, and he’s suddenly hit by another wave of happiness, a smile spreading across his face.

Except, he realizes a moment later, the phone is still ringing. Patrick finds it on the nightstand next to Pete’s bed, and he picks it up to check the caller ID. He raises an eyebrow as he reads the screen—it’s Josh. Looking over at Pete’s sleeping figure once more and deciding not to wake him up, Patrick presses the talk button and brings the phone up to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Pete! Listen man,” Josh’s voice comes through, excitement obvious even through the phone. “I need you to get down here as soon as p-”

“Oh, this isn’t Pete,” Patrick cuts him off before he can finish. “This is Patrick.”

“Patrick? Where’s Pete?”

“He’s right next to me. He’s sleeping.” Patrick suddenly feels his cheeks heating up. That did not come out how he wanted it to.

“Oh my god,” Josh sighs, his tone making Patrick’s blush even worse. “Please tell me you didn’t-”

“Jesus Christ, Josh!” Patrick cries out before he can say everything, not wanting to hear that.

“Patrick?” Pete’s mumbled voice comes from behind him, and Patrick looks over to see Pete rubbing his eyes, sitting himself up with a groan. “What’s Josh saying?” he says as he yawns, seeing his phone in Patrick’s hand. Patrick just shakes his head, hoping Pete doesn’t notice his blush, and hands him the phone.

He tries to make out what Josh is saying after Pete takes the phone, but it’s too quiet. Whatever he says seems to be something serious, though, because Pete suddenly wakes up and his eyes go wide.

“Are you serious?!” he exclaims, piquing Patrick’s interest. It kind of sounds like it’s a something good, but Patrick can never be sure with Pete. “Yeah. Yeah, man, we’ll be there as soon as possible. Awesome.” With that, Pete hangs up the phone, throwing it down on his bed as he turns to Patrick, excitement pooling in his eyes.

“What happened?” Patrick asks, silently praying it’s not what he’s beginning to think it is.

“Josh looked over the footage from last night,” he explains, a grin spread wide across his face. “He found something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello i just wanted to give a big thank you for everyone who follows this story!! i realize i've been very very very awful with updating due to a lot of reasons but now that this story is a little over halfways done, i think i've finally gotten over my writers block and am ready to finish this thing out :)  
> but yes just thank you to anyone who has read this story and like it, and super Huge thank yous to anyone who has left a comment, because you guys fuel me to keep writing :)  
> so yes anyways ur welcome for peterick (finally) and comment if u want more peterick (even if u dont comment its gonna happen but i mean commenting cant hurt)


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